An Odd Couple
by WeaponFanfic
Summary: When Odd goes looking for another girl to date, he gets more than he bargained for. This may not be a bad thing, though. OxS for the curious and some other minor ones.
1. Spats and Packages

**An Odd Couple**

_When Odd goes looking for another girl to date, he gets more than he bargained for. This may not be a bad thing, though. OxS for the curious and some other minor ones._

Disclaimer: Code Lyoko was created by Tania Palumbo and Thomas Romain. It was produced by Antefilms and then by MoonScoop. It is aired in France by France 3 and in America by Cartoon Network. The author is neither employed by or affiliated with any of the above companies or entities. All characters, locales, and other non-original entities are property of the parties mentioned above. All rights reserved.

* * *

Odd Della Robbia grabbed a small rubber ball between his thumb and index finger and placed it into the slot located in the middle of his side of the table. The tiny replica of a soccer ball rolled slowly down onto the ramp and towards the middle of the playing field. With a quick flick of the wrist, Odd twisted the knob with his left hand, sending the black and white sphere speeding towards his right side of the table. Before his eyes could follow the object, he heard the familiar thump of rubber hitting wood before the ball fell into the table. He slid the counter one more unit before retrieving the ball and starting the game anew. "Match point," he called out as he looked at his opponent.

Ulrich Stern stood there in deep concentration. His eyes looked at both scoreboards and saw that they were tied with one point to decide the winner. He then looked at Odd. A few minutes ago, he looked dejected seeing that he was behind by a very large score. Suddenly, in a matter of a few minutes, he found himself tied and looking chipper. While both Ulrich and Odd were good friends, they were also very competitive and hated losing. Now was the moment of truth.

Odd placed the ball into the slot once more. As soon as it rolled down the playing field, he hit it with the same ferocity as the last shot. Ulrich, however, was ready. He quickly grabbed the goalie control and blocked the shot. He went past the middle of the field and got the ball to the final line of strikers. Ulrich slowed the ball down and began to pass it between his men, preparing for the winning shot. After he felt the time was right, he fired the shot, hoping this would end the game. Odd, however, had a different plan. He grabbed the goalie controls and twisted hard. The force of the move slammed the plastic goalie into the ball and sent it flying past all of the other players on the field. Ulrich tried to grab the goalie in time but it was too late. The ball hit the left corner of the goal before going into the table once more. Odd slowly moved the final marker one space.

"YES!" he screamed before waving his hand in front of his face. "You can't see me!"

"Shh!" Elisabeth Delmas, also known as Sissi to everyone, said as she glared at Odd. A minute ago she was intently watching her favorite soap opera along with some of the other Kadic girls. The sudden outburst of joy had distracted her and she blamed no one but Odd for interrupting her entertainment.

"You shh!" Odd shot back. After getting a hard earned win over his friend, he wouldn't let anyone bring down his good feeling, especially the stuck-up daughter of the school principal.

"Quiet, you," Sissi said. "I'm trying to watch this."

"Why bother? They'll just rehash the same story next week." Odd teased.

Sissi was fuming at this point. While she grew to ignore his insults to her, she couldn't bear to have her favorite show get slammed by someone who wasn't cultured enough to appreciate it. "You little..."

"C'mon, Odd," Ulrich said as he tapped his best friend on the shoulder. "Let's get outta here." Normally he would wait around and see what kind of insults Odd would come up with against his obsessed stalker but after losing a close game, he didn't feel like hearing any of them right now.

Sissi turned back around and focused her attention on the TV again. She always liked Ulrich and was glad that he protected her from getting insulted this time. She just couldn't fathom why he was friends with someone who took pleasure at someone else's expense.

The duo headed for their dorm. When they arrived, they saw a medium-size box in front of the doorstep. They looked at each other quizzically. None of them was expecting a package and they certainly didn't order anything online. Ulrich approached the box while Odd stood back and watched. "Hey, Odd," Ulrich said as he looked at the label. "This is for you."

Odd picked up the box as Ulrich opened the door to their room. As they both sat down, Odd peeled back the label and saw an envelope behind it. He took out the letter inside and read it aloud.

"Dear Odd," he started out. "Here's the package you requested. Hope it helps with both your studies and your music. Love, Mom and Dad." Odd looked puzzled. He hadn't talked to his parents in about a month and he certainly didn't ask them for anything to send him. As he opened the top of the box, his bewildered look grew more apparent to Ulrich.

"What's wrong?" Ulrich asked.

Odd pulled out the contents of the package. Inside the box was a smaller box. Inside that was a laptop. "This is cool and everything, but I never asked my parents for this," he said with a suspicious tone. It wasn't like he didn't want a laptop, especially since his last one caught a nasty virus that it never recovered from, but since he never asked for one, Odd was beginning to think that this was a setup by XANA.

Ulrich picked up on the tone of his best friend's voice. "So, if you didn't ask for one, then who did?" At that moment a knock came from the door. Ulrich opened it to find Jeremie standing in the hallway.

"Hey guys," he said a he walked in the dorm. His calm demeanor changed to that of excitement as he saw the package in Odd's possession. "Oh cool. It came in."

"Huh?" Ulrich said in confusion.

Odd was equally as puzzled. "Uh, Jer, what do you know about this laptop?"

Jeremie adjusted his glasses before answering. "Well, Odd, I asked your parents to get you another laptop for school since your last one broke. I told them you would need it for school since you would be writing lots of reports and for your music since they know you're a budding DJ and filmmaker."

Odd's look of confusion changed to happiness, though he was still a bit confused. "Wait, so why does the letter say I asked for the laptop?"

"Because you did. Sorry, but I used your e-mail account to contact your parents to ask for this. I picked out he cheapest laptop possible that still packed some punch in it. Hope you're not mad about the 'invasion of privacy' thing." Jeremie said, realizing that what he did wasn't exactly ethical.

Odd smiled. "No way, Einstein. Besides I wouldn't know how to ask them for this in the first place. Thanks." He gave him a fist bump to show his appreciation.

"That's good," Jeremie said, relieved that everything was OK between them. "Besides, it's about time you had your own computer again. The last time I used my computer after I let you get your hands on it, I almost lost my hearing. Now, let's take your laptop over to my room so I could tweak it out and get it hooked up to the network."

"Um, Jeremie, do you think getting Odd another computer was a good idea?" Ulrich asked.

"Why?" he asked.

Ulrich grinned. "Knowing Odd, he'll be on it all night looking for porn."

Odd's eyes grew wide. "Ulrich, I'm shocked! You know that I would never indulge in such a thing."

"OK," he said as he posed his friend a challenging question. "So what are you going to use it for?"

The blond and purple haired kid didn't hesitate to provide an answer. "Girls!"

"Wait a minute," Ulrich said. He was a bit surprised by the answer, though knowing Odd he really shouldn't have been. "Isn't this what you did last time you had a laptop?"

Odd flinched. He remembered when he attempted internet dating last time and the results weren't to his liking. "I thought we agreed not to talk about that incident."

"So are you going to be using the laptop for studying and music?" Ulrich asked.

"Oh, I will," Odd said with a carefree smile on his face. "I'll be studying up on girls online before I write love songs for them."

Ulrich rolled his eyes. "Fine. Now, if you excuse me, I have to get ready for this afternoon."

Jeremie was intrigued. "What's happening this afternoon?"

"I'm going over to Yumi's house to study."

"Oooooo!" Jeremie and Odd said in unison. "So," Jeremie asked, "what are you studying? Chemistry? Biology?"

"Human Anatomy?" Odd chimed in.

Ulrich's face turned red from both anger and embarrassment. "Get out! Both of you!" He pushed both of his friends out the door before slamming it shut. Odd and Jeremie laughed as they went off to do massive upgrades to Odd's new toy.


	2. KadicChat

Ulrich had returned from his study session with Yumi. At least, he would have liked to think it was a study session. While he did go over to her place to study for a big Literature exam, he and Yumi spent at least half of that time flirting with each other. If it weren't for the fact that Hiroki was there playing video games with Johnny, things might have gotten farther than that. "Thank goodness for little brothers," he thought to himself, wondering if that was a good or bad thing. He entered his dorm to see Odd sitting in bed. He had face to his laptop and his headphones on loud enough that the music could be heard clearly if one concentrated hard enough. He was mouthing the lyrics to the song playing while there was a rapid tapping sound produced by the pressing of the keys on the keyboard. Ulrich was about to call out Odd's name but knew from previous encounters that once Odd had his headphones on, it would be hard to get him out of his audio trance. Instead, the easiest way to get his attention was to pull one of the headphone cups to the side.

Odd noticed that his wall of sound was only coming in from one ear. He turned to see that Ulrich was the one who interrupted his private listening party. "Hey, man, you're back already?"

Ulrich shook his head. "You really don't notice things, do you? Anyway, what are you doing?"

"My science report," he said nonchalantly.

"But it's not due until next week," Ulrich said. Ever since he knew him, he always saw Odd wait until the last minute before a report or project gets done. To see him do a report this early was puzzling.

"Yeah, well, now that I have this laptop, I figured that I use it for the reason my parents got it for me: homework."

Ulrich raised his eyebrows in shock. Maybe the laptop was a good idea after all. Deciding to leave him alone and let him concentrate on his report, he sat down and started to remove his shoes to prepare for bed.

"So," Odd asked, "How was the study date?"

Ulrich grinned. He knew that Odd would eventually want to talk about he and Yumi whether he wanted to or not. "It wasn't a study date. It was just studying with a friend."

"Did you guys plan to meet somewhere?" Odd asked.

"Well, yeah."

"Did you guys agree to study together?"

"Yeah."

"From what I know," Odd said triumphantly, "that's called a study date."

"Whatever," Ulrich responded, hoping that would be the end of the conversation. Silence fell on the room before Odd broke it again.

"So did you two study?" he asked.

Ulrich flopped down on his be and looked up at the ceiling. "We did," he answered sheepishly.

"Did you get to first base?"

"ODD!" Ulrich shouted, trying to get his blond-haired friend to finally drop the subject.

"Let me guess. Her parents were home?"

"Nope, just Hiroki and his friend."

"You know," Odd said, "If you and Yumi wanted to study here, just let me know and I give both of you guys some alone time."

Ulrich sighed. "That's what I'm afraid of." Despite knowing Yumi for what felt like forever, he was afraid to tell her the truth about how he felt about her. While he was frustrated about the fact that people were always around when they were together, he was also afraid, yet excited, for what could happen if they were finally alone together. He just didn't know if he could handle it just yet. "Anyways, I'm going to bed." Ulrich got up and shut off the light.

Odd turned down the brightness on his laptop so that the glow wouldn't bother his roommate. "Night, buddy," he said as he kept working on his report. Hours after he said that he saved his report and opened his web browser. He was able to finish a large chunk of the report and figured he needed an internet break before going to bed. Odd marveled at all of the things Jeremie put into his new toy. Aside from the default programs the computer came with, Jeremie decided to add an anti-viral program, a full word-processing suite, a better web browser and a full set of updates. He even added a full DJ program suite and several links to tons of music sites as well as some movie editing software. As far as Odd was concerned, he didn't need anything else for his laptop for quite a long time.

As the browser opened, he saw that Jeremie changed the homepage to the official Kadic homepage. This was Kadic's central hub of information for all of its students. It had links to study guides for all of the classes, online dictionaries and encyclopedias and other areas f interest for students who wanted to excel. Odd saw this often and never really paid any attention to it every time it appeared on Jeremie's computer. However, under the community heading, he noticed that there was a link to a Kadic chat room, advertised as being better than before. "Hmm, this seems interesting," Odd though to himself as he clicked on the link. He was asked for a nickname before he was given entry into the room. Odd typed out the first name that came to his mind: OddDog. He figured that any name he could come up with now would sound worse so he settled on this one. As he entered the room, he saw that there were at least 7 other people in the room.

** OddDog ** Hey, what's goin' on?

** TechKey ** Wassup!

** LizzyKitty ** Hi.

** TrickE ** Hey.

** OtakuMan ** Konichiwa!

** SuperScoop ** Hi there.

** KillerCam ** Hi.

** AnnRKay ** Yo!

** OddDog **So how long has this chat room been here?

** OtakuMan ** Dunno. Ever since I've enrolled at Kadic about a year ago this was here.

**LizzyKitty nods**

** OddDog ** Cool. So, who are you people really?

**TechKey hits a buzzer**

** AnnRKay ** Sorry, OddDog, but that's one of the few rules we have here at the chat room.

** KillerCam ** Exactly, no revealing who the people behind the nicknames are.

** SuperScoop ** It kinda keeps us anonymous yet open to talking. Y'know, sheds our clique-ish ways and lets us start new friendships without barriers.

** OddDog ** OK, good to know. So, is this the whole chat room crew or are there more people doing this thing?

** LizzyKitty ** Usually there are more people but these are the ones that usually stay up the latest.

** TrickE ** Speaking of which, I should go get some sleep.

** TechKey ** Same here. Sleep is a good thing :)

** AnnRKay ** L8r ppl.

**AnnRKay has quit #KadicChat**

**SuperScoop has quit #KadicChat**

**OtakuMan has quit #KadicChat**

**TechKey has quit #KadicChat**

**KillerCam has quit #KadicChat**

**TrickE has quit #KadicChat**

** OddDog ** Well, this sucks.

** LizzyKitty ** ???

** OddDog ** I'm not sleepy and I was hoping that this place would be busy at night.

** LizzyKitty ** Well, I'm still awake.

** OddDog ** You're not going to bed like everyone else?

** LizzyKitty ** Nah. Usually I'm the last one to leave before the room becomes completely empty.

** OddDog ** Wow. Thanks for staying up.

** LizzyKitty ** Not a problem. So, what do you want to talk about?

** OddDog ** Um, I dunno. Lemme think.

** OddDog ** So, are you a guy or a girl?

** LizzyKitty ** None of your business.

** OddDog ** Sorry, forgot about the whole anonymous thing.

** LizzyKitty ** That's OK, I'm a girl.

** OddDog ** Hey, I thought that was none of my business?

** LizzyKitty ** It wasn't, but it would be kind of boring if you asked a question and I didn't bother answering it.

** LizzyKitty ** Besides, doesn't my nickname give it away? Kinda like your nickname tells me you're a guy?

** OddDog **How did you know?

** LizzyKitty ** 2 things give I away:

** LizzyKitty ** 1) Your name is OddDog and mine is LizzyKitty. Only a girl would use a cat in her nickname while a guy would use a dog in his nickname. You don't see too many guys proclaiming their love of cats.

** LizzyKitty ** and 2) Only a guy would ask someone online if they are a girl or not. Girls don't care about that :)

** OddDog ** Touche.

**LizzyKitty laughs**

** OddDog ** hahahahha

** LizzyKitty **So, now that you know I'm a girl, is there any other random question you want to ask or talk about.

** OddDog **Don't worry, I'll think of something good in a minute.

Odd smiled as he kept the conversation going with his new chat buddy. Whoever this person was, she as smart and kind of witty and he liked it. Somehow he felt that he could be coming here quite often.


	3. The Lunch

The loud piercing noise of the alarm clock awoke Ulrich from his slumber. He turned over to turn it off and groaned when he saw that there wasn't enough time to go back and catch a few more minutes of sleep. He had that dream he always had every night about Yumi. He desperately wanted to go back to bed and continue his dream but realized that the morning and school had defeated him once more. He got out of his bed and stretched. As he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, he noticed that Odd was still asleep. Unlike other mornings, however, Odd was sleeping in a sitting position with the laptop monitor still basking a glow on his face. Ulrich went to shake him awake when he happened to look on the monitor and see a chat room window with a full conversation on-screen. He knew better than to read over the conversation and turned his attention back to his sleeping friend. After grabbing his shoulder and giving him a shake, Odd woke up.

"Done with your report, I see," Ulrich said.

"Huh?" Odd asked as he yawned back to a more alert state. He looked back on the laptop to see the chat room was still open and figured Ulrich was slyly referring to hat was on-screen. "Oh yeah. I guess I'm starting to turn into Jeremie now," he said. It was normal for Jeremie to fall asleep in front on his PC. Now that Odd had a computer of his own again, he suddenly saw himself taking on that habit.

"C'mon, let's get ready for the grind," Ulrich said as he began walking out of the dorm room. Odd got out of bed and shut down the laptop before following everyone else to get ready for school.

A few hours passed before lunch time had arrived. Except for the end of the school day, this was one of the few times of the day where the gang could spend a good amount of time socializing with each other. Odd and Aelita took their plates of spaghetti and meatballs and set them down. Soon afterwards Jeremie and Ulrich followed suit with Yumi being the last to get her lunch.

"So, Odd, how's the new laptop treating you?" Jeremie asked as he took his first bite of lunch.

Odd took a large bite of a meatball before answering the question. "It's great, actually. I got that report Ms. Hertz wanted done before going to bed."

"Excellent!" Jeremie beamed. He knew he had the right idea when he decided Odd should leave him PC alone and get one of his own.

Odd took a forkful of spaghetti. "Even better," he said, "I found out that Kadic has it's own chat room."

Yumi raised an eyebrow. "Really? I had no idea it was still around."

Odd nodded. "It's great. Brand new and better than last time. I spent all night talking to some really cool people there."

Ulrich raised an eyebrow of his own, especially after taking a brief glance at the monitor this morning. "So how many people kept you up last night?"

"Um," Odd began to answer reluctantly. "Just one."

"I bet you it was a girl," Aelita said as an aside to Yumi.

"Hey!" Odd exclaimed at Aelita's comment.

"So am I right?" she asked, almost challenging Odd to prove her wrong.

"Well... yeah." he said sheepishly.

"I knew it!" he said as he pointed a finger at his best friend. "You were trying to flirt with a girl online. That's why you didn't go to sleep last night."

Odd took another forkful of spaghetti before defending himself. "Just because I was talking to a girl online last night does not mean I was flirting with her."

"Please," Ulrich retorted. "Except for Yumi, you flirt with every girl you see before you end up trying to date them. You're practically the Kadic Casanova."

Odd pointed his fork at his roommate. "Oh yeah? Prove it!"

Ulrich pointed his eyes to the ceiling as held out his fingers to help him keep count. "Let's see, there's Emily, Naomi, Taelia, Claire..."

"Heidi, Sorya, Jeanne, Magali, Sophie," Jeremie said as he decided to add to the growing list.

Yumi decided to do the same. "Tania, Maitena, Priscilla, Caroline, Azra."

Aelita even decided to chime in to the list. "Not to mention Samantha and Brynja who don't even go to this school. And, at one time, myself when you first met me in Lyoko."

Odd himself was shocked at the list of girls mentioned. If he didn't know any better, he would say that he went through every girl in his grade and beyond. "At least I never tried to date one girl," he said, trying to defend himself against his friends.

"Oh?" Aelita wondered. "And who would that be?"

Odd answered confidently. "Sissi. I wouldn't be caught dead trying to date a monster like here."

"I heard that!" Sissi shouted. She always sat at the lunch table a few rows away from the gang. Though she never bothered to listen in on their conversations, she took great interest on this one once her name was mentioned.

"What did I tell you. Only a monster could have super sonic hearing like hers," he said, trying his best to annoy her just a little bit more.

Sissi now turned her full attention to her nemesis. "Shh, you pointy-haired imp!"

"You shh, you nosy airhead!" he retorted.

"Shh!"

"Shh!"

Both of them gave each other evil looks before turning their heads away from each other. Aelita simply sighed at the sight. Somehow it wouldn't be lunchtime without a spat between Sissi and Odd occurring. Odd turned his attention back on his friends while Sissi turned her attention back on her lunch. Before doing so, however, she noticed that Herve was simply staring at her with his chin resting on his hands as he gave her a stupid look. Annoyed, she smacked her pimple-faced peon in the head.

"Ow!" Herve exclaimed as he started to rub the spot where he got hit.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked in an angry tone.

"Um, nothing," he said as he realized what had happened and continued to eat his food. He had always had a crush on Sissi ever since he laid eyes on her. Her beauty and bossy attitude were turn-ons for him. However, that same attitude he loved made it hard for him to express his true feelings to her. He was just glad that she didn't catch on to him now. He wanted to wait until the time was perfect to express those feelings of love and now was definitely not the time.


	4. Denial of Feelings

Night had fallen over Kadic. After dinner had ended, the students went on about their business. Some of them went to the library in order to concentrate on their homework. Others sought the refuge of their dorm rooms to escape from the trials of the day. Elisabeth Delmas followed the lead of some of the other students and turned to her computer for entertainment and companionship. As she sat on her bed, she fired up her chat program and began to type away.

**LizzyKitty has entered the room**

** LizzyKitty ** Hey everyone!

** AnnRKay ** Hey.

** TechKey ** Yo.

** KillerCam ** Hi.

** SuperScoop ** Hey there.

** AnnRKay ** So, you tired LK?

** LizzyKitty ** Why would I be? It's still pretty early and the usual crew would be coming in later.

** AnnRKay ** Ah, I C.

Suddenly Sissi saw a pop-up on her screen. It was a message asking from AnnRKay asking for a private chat session. She clicked it and was immediately taken to a smaller window away from everyone else.

** AnnRKay ** Sorry to put you on the spot like that.

** LizzyKitty **It's OK :)

** AnnRKay ** It's just that you spent till 4AM talking to OddDog. Very unusual for you.

** LizzyKitty ** Huh? How did you know?

Another pop-up box appeared on-screen, this time asking if she would like to receive a file from AnnRKay. As she accepted it, Sissi saw that it was a complete log of her conversation last night with OddDog. Surprised, she went back to the private chat window and started typing.

** LizzyKitty ** How did you get this?

** AnnRKay ** TechKey gave it to me. He figured I would find it interesting.

** LizzyKitty ** How did he get his?

** AnnRKay ** He's the chat room admin, remember?

** AnnRKay **Anyway, you like him, don't you?

** LizzyKitty ** WHAT?!? Look, we only had one conversation. That doesn't mean I love the guy already.

** AnnRKay ** No one said anything about love, but you did spend a really long time talking to him.

** LizzyKitty ** So?

** AnnRKay ** So, no one decides to talk to someone that long unless they like them as friends or like them as something more.

** LizzyKitty ** He could just be a nice guy I want to keep as a friend. You ever think that would be the case?

** AnnRKay ** Probably.

** AnnRKay ** Probably not.

** AnnRKay ** Either way, I'm just looking out for you.

** LizzyKitty ** Thanks Ann.

** AnnRKay ** Just do me a favor.

** LizzyKitty ** ???

** AnnRKay ** If you want to talk to him without any logs, just private chat him.

** LizzyKitty ** ok.

** AnnRKay ** And if this develops into something more, lemme know.

**LizzyKitty rolls her eyes**

** AnnRKay ** pleeeeease?

** LizzyKitty ** Fine, whatever.

** AnnRKay ** :)

**AnnRKay has left private chat**

Sissi closed the private chat window and placed her focus back on the main chat room.

** OtakuMan ** and that's how I would have handled things.

** TrickE ** well, too late for that now, I suppose.

** TechKey ** Sorry it had to come to this.

** LizzyKitty ** What did I miss?

** SuperScoop ** OtakuMan was telling us how he just broke up with his girl since she found her cheating with another man.

** KillerCam ** Yeah, apparently she was too free spirited and he wasn't.

** AnnRKay ** That sucks!

** LizzyKitty ** Wow. Sorry to hear that, OM.

**LizzyKitty hugz OtakuMan**

** OtakuMan ** Thanx. I'll live through this.

**OddDog has entered #KadicChat**

** OddDog ** Hey everyone.

** LizzyKitty ** Hey OddDog.

** TrickE ** Hola!

**AnnRKay waves on behalf of everyone**

** OddDog ** So what's going on?

** OtakuMan ** nothing

** LizzyKitty ** Just a consoling session. OtakuMan just broke up with his girlfriend.

** OddDog ** Oh, dude, I'm sorry.

** OtakuMan ** Eh, let's just drop the subject. No more depression tonight.

**OtakuMan throws the subject into the river**

Sissi also didn't feel like being depressed tonight. She figured she would continue her conversation with OddDog. She sent him a private chat request and after a few minutes a new window appeared.

** OddDog ** Um, hello?

** LizzyKitty ** Hey.

** OddDog ** What's with the new window?

** LizzyKitty ** Well, just wanted to talk to you without anyone interrupting.

** LizzyKitty **Besides, apparently we can be logged if we talk in the main room.

** OddDog ** Oh, ok.

** OddDog ** So what did you want to talk about?

** LizzyKitty ** Well, you had a good story you were telling me last night.

** OddDog ** What story?

**OddDog thinks**

** OddDog ** You mean the one about my sisters?

** LizzyKitty ** That's the one. You were in the middle of it when we both fell asleep.

**OddDog groans**

** LizzyKitty ** What's wrong?

** OddDog ** I don't know if I want to talk about them anymore.

** LizzyKitty **???

** OddDog ** Being the only guy in a family full of girls is hard enough. I can't really talk to them about most stuff I'm going through. Now, being the youngest in that family? Every day is a torture session.

** LizzyKitty ** Well I think it's fascinating.

** OddDog ** Lemme guess. You don't have any brothers or sisters of your own?

** LizzyKitty ** No.

** OddDog **You don't know how lucky you have it.

** LizzyKitty ** Not really. Being an only child can be boring and lonely. No one to talk to and no one to play with. When all your friends have gone home, all you have is yourself.

** OddDog **So why didn't your parents have another kid, if I can ask.

** LizzyKitty ** Well, my mom passed when I was young and my dad couldn't think of getting re-married, so here we are.

** OddDog ** Oh, man, I'm sorry.

** LizzyKitty **Nah, it's ok. We've both managed.

** LizzyKitty ** So are you going to tell me the story again or what?

**OddDog groans again**

** OddDog ** Do I have to?

** LizzyKitty ** Do you want I should tell you a sob story from my life?

** OddDog ** Fine.

** OddDog ** Why do girls have to be so manipulative?

**LizzyKitty laughs**

** LizzyKitty ** Because it helps us get what we want :)

Sissi lay back on her bed and continued to look at her screen. AnnRKay was wrong about her. She just saw OddDog as a friend. After all, friends share stories about their families and find it fascinating. He's just a friend and nothing more. As long as she keeps telling herself that everything will be all right.


	5. Eating With Friends

Ulrich sat down at the lunch table with the rest of his friends. As he ate his meatloaf, he took a glance at Odd and saw him take a deep yawn. Two weeks had passed since his friend got the new laptop and he noticed a change to his routine. Every morning Ulrich would find Odd asleep with the laptop still on. Odd would get ready for school, eat lunch, end the school day, finish his homework early, then stay up all night in the chat room until the next morning. This was unusual because he was always a slacker in the past, choosing to wait until the last minute to work and always trying to have fun and go out with girls in the meantime. Ulrich knew something was up. He also knew that if he confronted Odd about it alone he would go nowhere since Odd would always find a way to somehow change the subject and make Ulrich forget what he was talking about. With his friends together in the same spot, however, the brown-haired kid knew he had a chance.

"Hey, Odd," Ulrich said, trying to get his attention.

Odd chomped down on a huge chunk of meatloaf covered in gravy. "Yeah, bud," he said, barely intelligible thanks to the food present in his mouth.

"You still flirting with that girl online?" he asked bluntly.

Odd's eyes widened. The question surprised him enough hat a piece of the meatloaf went down the wrong pipe, causing him to stifle a cough. He took a sip of water to calm himself down. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb. I find you every morning slumped over your laptop still in the chat room. You even woke up one morning with latch marks on your forehead since you fell asleep on the monitor."

Odd rubbed his forehead. The marks weren't there this time but he did remember doing that a few days ago. "Wow, I'm taking after Jeremie now," he said jokingly, trying to evade the subject.

"Now that Ulrich pointed it out, you have been looking worse for wear," Jeremie chimed in, deflecting the focus of the conversation back to Odd's issue. "Not to mention the fact that you've been yawning more than usual."

Odd yawned again, this time covering his mouth in hopes that no one would notice. "Everyone yawns. That a normal thing to do."

Yumi decided to look at Odd dead in the eye, hoping that he would no longer be able to evade the subject. "Look, we've seen this before with Jeremie. So are you or are you not talking to a girl online?"

Odd sighed. He knew that if he didn't answer the question now he'd have to face interrogation from Aelita. He couldn't quite pinpoint why, but every time she asked him something, he couldn't blow her off like he did everyone else. He figured he didn't want to have to go through that one more time. "OK, fine, I'm talking to a girl online. Are you happy now?"

"Maybe," Aelita said with a devilish grin. "So what's she like?"

"Well," he started, "She's a good listener to other people's problems. Loves music and romantic movies but secretly loves goofy comedies as well. She wanted siblings but her mom passed when she was young. She was obsessed with one boy for a long time but gave up when that went nowhere. Aside from the chat room, she doesn't have too many friends but she manages."

Ulrich was astonished. "That doesn't sound like the kind of girl you usually date."

"That's because I might not date her," Odd said sadly. "She just sounds too good for me. I mean, usually when I date someone, it's over before it started. This girl... she just seems different. I don't want her to be another statistic."

Aelita put her hand on his shoulder for a moment. "I don't think that'll happen. From the sound of things, you wouldn't let yourself do that to her."

"You think so?" Odd asked.

Aelita nodded. "I know so. I have a good feeling about this."

Odd smiled. His confidence had now returned. "Thanks, Aelita. So, should I ask her to trade pictures?"

"Not a good idea," warned Yumi. "People online usually don't send real pictures of themselves. For all you know, you could get a picture of a supermodel when she really looks like the lunch lady from hell."

"Good thing Jeremie got lucky with Aelita," Odd quipped.

Jeremie held out his hand and started a finger count. "OK, first of all, that was video chat in a virtual world. And two, why is the subject always coming back to me?"

"Because you and Aelita are the best example of what Odd is going through," Yumi answered. Jeremie and Aelita looked at each other for a brief moment then turned away and blushed. Both of them knew Yumi was right. They both knew they liked each other and they knew that the other person knew this fact. When they would finally admit it to each other was another story.

Odd chuckled. "Well, if I'm not going to ask for a picture trade, then I'll ask her to meet me after school tomorrow."

Ulrich looked confused. "Wait a minute," he said. " So asking her for a picture is bad but meeting her in real life is better?"

"Everyone in the chat room goes to Kadic," Odd said. "It's not like I'm going to meet someone crazy or anything like that."

"OK," Ulrich retorted, "How will you know what she looks like without a picture?"

"I'll know. Trust Me." Odd looked at the clock and saw there was 10 minutes to go before the second half of the school day began. "Anyway, see ya guys. I gotta go feed Kiwi before class." He got up and waved to his friends before walking off. As he walked, he stopped at the table where Sissi and her crew were sitting at. "Hey Sissi.," he called out.

The Principal's daughter turned and shot a scowl when she realized who had caught her attention. "What do you want?" she spat out.

Odd yawned wide and loud before walking off with a smile. Sissi looked bewildered before letting out a yawn of her own. "JERK!" she shouted out at Odd when she realized exactly what he had done. She turned around to see Herve yawning as well. Thinking he was making fun of her, she smacked him before getting up and walking off. Herve had a look of confusion after being hit while Nikolas simply shook his head in disappointment.

"You know," Jeremie said, "every time I think that Odd has finally matured, he goes and proves to us he's still immature."

"Maybe," Aelita said, "but I think this person he's going after can change him for the better." With that, they all walked off to their respective classes to face the rest of the school day.


	6. Planning the Date

Sissi entered the chat room and was immediately assaulted with a private chat request from AnnRKay. She accepted, partially knowing what this was all about.

** LizzyKitty ** Hey Ann.

** AnnRKay ** So what happened to that promise you made to me weeks ago?

**AnnRKay taps her foot**

** LizzyKitty ** What are you talking about?

** AnnRKay ** Don't tell me you forgot about it.

** LizzyKitty ** I didn't forget a thing!

** AnnRKay ** OK, so what did you promise to me?

** LizzyKitty ** I promised to tell you if me chatting with OddDog evolves into something else.

** AnnRKay ** So it didn't?

** LizzyKitty ** Well... no.

** AnnRKay ** So nothing happened during those two weeks where you guys practically abandoned the room to talk amongst yourselves?

** LizzyKitty ** Um, not exactly.

** AnnRKay ** Not exactly?

**AnnRKay taps her foot again and wags her finger**

** AnnRKay ** Truth time, Liz. What does "not exactly" mean?

** LizzyKitty ** "Not exactly" means that I think I like him but I don't know if he likes me.

** AnnRKay ** Intriguing. Tell me more.

** LizzyKitty ** No. You only told me to tell you if things changed between me and OddDog. It kinda did so that's that.

**AnnRKay pouts**

** AnnRKay ** Fine.

** AnnRKay ** And here I was about to tell you that me and TechKey hooked up.

** LizzyKitty ** WHAT?!?

**LizzyKitty hops up and down**

** LizzyKitty ** Oh, oh, details, details please!

** AnnRKay ** Well, only if you tell me why you think you like OddDog.

**LizzyKitty scowls**

** LizzyKitty ** Why are we girls so manipulative?

** AnnRKay ** Because it helps us get what we want. You said so yourself. :)

** LizzyKitty ** Oy.

** LizzyKitty ** Anyway, he's a funny guy. Seems to care about his friends a lot. He loves my kind of music and we share the some of the same tastes in movies. He has a few older sisters and you know how I feel about having siblings.

**AnnRKay nods**

** AnnRKay ** So what are you afraid of?

** LizzyKitty **Well, the guy told me he has had tons of dates with tons of girls but he hasn't found happiness yet. All of his close friends seem to have found it with each other but he's the single guy in the group.

** LizzyKitty ** I don't know if I'll be the one to fill that role or just a throwaway girl.

** AnnRKay ** OK, first off, the number of dates a person has been on means nothing. I mean, how many have you been on?

** LizzyKitty **Actually... none.

**AnnRKay thinks**

** AnnRKay ** See, just because you haven't been on a date doesn't mean that you aren't dateable.

** AnnRKay ** Second, if you were going to be a throwaway date to this guy, he wouldn't be after you for this long.

** LizzyKitty ** I guess so.

** AnnRKay ** Well, you might know soon enough. He just came in the room.

Sissi looked in the room and saw that AnnRKay was right. Before she was able to type a letter, she received a private chat request from none other than OddDog himself.

** LizzyKitty ** Hey there.

** OddDog ** Hi.

** OddDog ** Um, can I ask you something?

** LizzyKitty ** Sure.

** OddDog ** Uh... I don't know how to ask this online but...

** OddDog ** Do you want to meet up?

** LizzyKitty ** Huh?

** OddDog ** After school. Tomorrow.

** OddDog ** I think it's time I meet you in real life. I want to see the person I've been attracted to online.

** LizzyKitty ** Um... can you hold on for a sec?

Sissi was shocked. She didn't think the day would come but she was finally asked out... sort of. She was conflicted, both happy that it happened and scared. Despite the fact that she kept pursuing Ulrich for quite some time, she never got a positive response from him. As a result, she didn't know how to respond. She clicked over to AnnRKay's window and began typing.

** LizzyKitty ** He just asked me to meet him tomorrow. What should I do?

** AnnRKay ** Ohmygosh!

** AnnRKay ** Don't you want to meet him in real life?

** LizzyKitty ** Yeah!

** AnnRKay ** So don't go telling me. Go tell him!

Sissi clicked over to the other chat window and began typing again.

** LizzyKitty ** Sorry, I had to take care of something.

** OddDog ** Oh. I thought I had scared you away for a minute.

** OddDog ** So, what do you say?

** LizzyKitty ** Yeah, let's meet up. Where and when?

** OddDog ** Uh... lemme think.

** OddDog ** After school out in the quad.

** LizzyKitty ** Sounds good.

** OddDog ** OK, so I'll see you then.

** LizzyKitty ** See ya.

**OddDog has let private chat**

Sissi clicked back to the initial private chat room.

** LizzyKitty ** Done.

** AnnRKay ** ???

** LizzyKitty ** I'm meeting up with OddDog tomorrow. After school in the quad.

** AnnRKay ** Congratulations. So how will you know you found the right person?

** LizzyKitty ** Um...

** AnnRKay ** So you didn't set up some ID system with him? Like a description of what you're going to wear or what he'll wear?

** LizzyKitty ** Well... I was about to ask him but then he left.

** AnnRKay ** Um, sure. Admit it, you didn't think about it.

** LizzyKitty ** Hey!

** AnnRKay ** It's ok. After all, there won't be too many people hanging out in the quad tomorrow, right?

** LizzyKitty ** I hope not.

** LizzyKitty ** Anyway, I better head out. Wish me luck tomorrow.

** AnnRKay ** Good luck, Liz.

Sissi shut down her computer and lay back in her bed. After she finally got over Ulrich, someone out there found her attractive enough to want to be with her. That's what she hoped for, at least. She turned off the lights and pulled the covers over herself as she went to sleep with a smile on her face.

Meanwhile, in his dorm room, Odd shut down his laptop. He finally decided to follow on his instincts and ask his online crush to meet with him in real life. He was confident tomorrow would be a good day for him.

Ulrich peered over his book, his eyebrows revealing his surprise. For the first time in two weeks, Odd wouldn't be sleeping with his laptop open and active. "So I take it you asked her out?"

"Yup!" Odd responded. "After school tomorrow in the quad."

Ulrich nodded. "So how will you know it's her?"

Odd thought about it for a minute, realizing that he didn't let LizzyKitty know what he'll be wearing tomorrow to help her find him. "Eh, I'll know. I have good instincts when it comes to girls."

Ulrich shook his head. That statement told him that there was no plan to begin with. "Well, good luck tomorrow, buddy."

"Thanks," Odd said. "You know, you should do what I just did."

"Ask out a girl online?" Ulrich asked with a hint of sarcasm.

"No," Odd said, "ask Yumi out on a date."

Ulrich checked his pillow at Odd, hitting him squarely in the face. "Go to bed, Odd."

Odd threw the pillow back before going to bed with a smile on his face. Tomorrow would be a good day. He was sure of it.


	7. Before the Date

Lunch time had arrived once more. Odd grabbed his plate of macaroni and cheese and sat down at the same table his friends were at. As soon as he sat down, all eyes were on him. He took his first bite of his dish before he noticed his friends focusing their attention on him.

"So, what happened?" Yumi asked as she broke the silence.

"Ulrich didn't tell you guys?" Odd asked. Everyone on the table except for Ulrich himself shook their heads. "I asked her to meet up after school."

"How wonderful," Aelita said. "So how will you know who you're looking for?"

Jeremie chuckled. "My guess is that he doesn't."

Odd took a sip of his water. "Hey, give me more credit than that."

"So what are you going to be looking for when you try to find her?" Jeremie asked, challenging him the same way Aelita did a few weeks ago.

"Nothing," he said, "but I'll know when I see her."

A few tables away Sissi was sitting with her cronies Herve and Nikolas. She wore a deep red dress and a smile of bliss on her face as she casually ate her macaroni and cheese lunch. While she sat down in silence, her focus was not on listening in on other people's conversations but on her big meeting later on in the day. She was happy all of this was finally happening to her but she was afraid as well. What would happen when they finally meet? Would she find him attractive once they meet up? Will he feel the same way? Would this all be just a big mistake? She decided not to worry about all of that now and focus instead on the happier side of things.

Herve had once more resorted to staring at Sissi while she ate. He immediately noticed that she was more pleasant today than ever before. He also noticed that she wore something rather nice that day. Yet, despite all of the compliments he could shower upon her, he remained silent and scared to open his mouth.

Nikolas looked over to his side to see his friend in his staring routine again. While he had no interest in Sissi himself, he knew for a fact that Herve was simply crazy about her. What bothered him, however, was the fact that after all this time Herve did nothing about it. He was plain lucky that Ulrich never gave in to Sissi's advances but he might not be so lucky if someone else takes a liking to her. Nikolas gave a swift kick to Herve's shin before signaling that this was a perfect time to say something to Sissi.

Herve was awakened from his trance by his friend's blow to his leg. This was it. It was finally time for him to make his move. "Um, Sissi, you look rather nice today."

Sissi broke from her euphoric moment to acknowledge Herve. Normally he would reprimand him for taking her out of her happy place. Sometimes that scolding would be followed by a smack to the head. This time, however, she was too happy to even consider any of those actions. "Why, thank you, Herve. I'm glad you noticed."

Herve couldn't believe it. Sissi actually spoke to him. And it wasn't to order him to do something or to insult him or anything of the sort. He figured he hit himself a lucky streak and decided to go along with it. "So," he asked, "what's the occasion?"

"I've got a date after school," she answered nonchalantly.

Herve's spirits were immediately crushed. The moment he thought he had a chance to let Sissi know he existed as something more than a lackey, someone else takes her away from him. While his heart was breaking on the inside, he couldn't let it show, especially in front of the girl of his dreams. "With who?" he asked as he tried to fight through his personal pain.

"Oh, some guy," she said. "Which reminds me, there's still a bit more prep work I have to do." She immediately got up from the table and headed back to her dorm room.

Nikolas looked over at his friend, who was on the verge of a breakdown. "I'm sorry, man."

Herve simply sat dumbfounded. "Do you think it's Ulrich?" he asked. Ulrich was the only person he could think of that Sissi was attracted to.

"Don't be stupid," Nikolas said. "Everyone knows Ulrich and Yumi are mad for each other."

Herve knew his friend was right. "Well, what if this guy is a jerk? What if he tries something to hurt her?" He buried his hands in his face. "I should have told her before so that none of this would have happened."

"Well, maybe they'll break up after the first date. You never know," Nikolas said as he tried to cheer up his friend. Seeing as how it wasn't going to work this time, he got up from the table and got himself ready for classes.


	8. First Meeting

The final bell of the day rang throughout Kadic Academy. For most of the students, this meant that they could take a breather before starting the daily cycle again. Some would take part in a few after-school activities. Others would go to the library to continue their studies in order to have their leisure time later in the day.

Odd looked forward to the bell. For him, it was time to go and meet another girl in the school. It was a different thing to get to know someone personally through the internet before meeting them in person but Odd didn't seem to mind at all. In his mind, he would let things play out as they normally would and everything would be alright. Decked out in his usual purple-clad outfit, he leaned on one of the archway pillars, one foot placed flat against it, and waited for his maiden to arrive.

Sissi looked forward to the bell as well. For her, this was the moment of truth. For once in her life she would get to meet someone that noticed her and took a liking to her for what was showing inside. After all this time chasing one boy around, it was finally time for someone to chase after her. She sat on a nearby bench and took out her day planner so as not to look like she was waiting for her prince to show up.

What no one seemed to count on was the number of students that would be in the same area as both Sissi and Odd were. While the school seemed small at first glance, Kadic was actually home to a great multitude of students from several different countries. The idea to meet up at the quad directly after school was a good idea, the fact that there were plenty of students also hanging out at the quad made the search for each other quite difficult. Upon realizing this, Odd stopped leaning on the archway and started to look around. He was hoping that he would find someone else that was also searching for someone and then make the connection. As the crowd of people slowly thinned out, Odd failed to find the girl he was looking for. At that moment, he saw Sissi sitting on a bench with the day planner in one hand and a stylus in the other. "Could she be the one?" Odd asked himself. He dwelled on this thought for a split-second before bringing himself back to reality. There was no way this cruel-hearted, self-centered girl was the one he was looking for, especially since fate had dealt him that hand before. Yet ,since she was sitting down on the bench for a while, she might know something Odd didn't. Swallowing his pride for a moment, Odd walked over to Sissi.

"Excuse me, was there someone looking for me earlier ago?" he asked.

Sissi looked up to see that it was Odd who asked her that question. She was shocked. Here was the class clown and overall jerk coming over to ask her a question. She thought that this had to be a trick of sorts, like the start of a really bad joke where she would become the punchline. She closed her day planner and stood up to face him.

"Well, let's see. There was Jim who had a detention warrant out for you earlier. There was the school counselor who wanted to ask why you're so stupid. Then there was was some upperclassman who asked if short was the new trend for this year," she said seethingly. There were very few times where she got to draw first blood during their spats. When it did happen, however, she took the time to deliver as harsh of a blow as possible.

"Wow, sorry I ever asked." He placed his hands in his pockets and started to walk away. Odd would usually have a snappy comeback to those insults but he wasn't in the mood for that now.

"Sorry you couldn't find a bimbo to date tonight. Maybe next time," Sissi shouted back.

Odd stopped walking and cocked his head back towards Sissi. While he wasn't in the mood for a verbal fight, that didn't mean he couldn't still throw something back at his mortal enemy. "Sissi," he said, "Stop talking about yourself that way. Your father doesn't need to know about that."

Sissi was beside herself. For some reason, she was not prepared for Odd to make a comeback like that. She clenched her fists and growled before stomping off. Odd grinned knowing that even in bad times, he could still best the Principal's daughter. He briefly enjoyed the moment before walking back to his dorm room, thinking about the missed opportunity to meet the girl in the chat room.

Evening fell on the campus and the last helping of dinner had already been served. In his room, Odd fired up the laptop and went to the chat room. After a few pleasantries, he found the person he wanted to talk to. A private chat invite was sent and Odd focused all of his attention to the new window.

** OddDog ** Hey.

** LizzyKitty ** Hi.

** LizzyKitty ** What happened to you today?

** OddDog ** I was out in the quad looking for you? Where were you?

** LizzyKitty ** I was looking for you in the quad. It was hard with all those people there.

** OddDog ** Yeah, I should have planned this out better.

** LizzyKitty ** Don't be so hard on yourself. I should have known to tell you what I was wearing or something.

** OddDog ** Looks like we both assumed this would be easy.

**LizzyKitty giggles**

** OddDog ** Y'know, just talking to you now makes me feel better.

** LizzyKitty ** Bad day today?

** OddDog ** Not really, but when I was looking for you I asked someone for some help and she was just acting like a jerk.

** LizzyKitty ** She? Was she an old girlfriend or something?

** OddDog ** No way!

** LizzyKitty ** Hehehe.

** LizzyKitty ** Forget about it then. It'll help you feel better if you do. It certainly help me.

** OddDog ** Does it happen to you often?

** LizzyKitty ** Just today, in fact. Some guy called me a name and I got so mad I couldn't fight back. I just walked away and tried to forget about it.

** OddDog ** Sorry to hear that. You definitely didn't deserve that kind of treatment.

** LizzyKitty ** Eh, whatever.

** OddDog ** No whatever about it. You're too nice of a person for some jerk to come by and embarrass you like that.

** LizzyKitty ** How sweet of you to say that.

**OddDog blushes**

** LizzyKitty ** Anyway, you want to try this again tomorrow?

** OddDog ** Sure. When and where?

** LizzyKitty ** Right after school by the bleachers. There's fewer people there.

** OddDog ** OK. Just in case, anything I should be looking for?

** LizzyKitty ** I'll be wearing a pair of red sunglasses.

** OddDog ** Cool. I'll be wearing a sweater with the hood up.

** LizzyKitty ** Sounds good. I'll see you then.

** OddDog ** OK. Goodnight.

** LizzyKitty ** G'night.

**OddDog has left private chat**

Sissi shut down her computer and began rummaging through her drawer. She had found her favorite pair of sunglasses: red framed sunglasses with red tinted lenses. She placed them on her nightstand as a reminder to bring them the next day.


	9. The Wrong One

The lunch bell had rung throughout the school grounds. All of the students had lined up to get their share of today's lunch special: tuna casserole. Sissi had taken her portion and sat at her usual spot with Herve and Nikolas. As she ate, she noticed that Herve looked more pathetic than normal. While she normally wouldn't care about him, his look made her feel uneasy. "What's wrong with you?" she asked.

Herve looked at Sissi briefly before turning his attention once again to the tuna. "Oh, nothing," he said before taking another bite. "So how was your date?"

"He never showed up," she said before she continued eating. "But he's supposed to try to meet up with me again after school by the bleachers."

"He stood you up?" he asked, both astonished and disgusted. "Just who is this guy?"

"Actually," she said, "I only met him online. I've never seen a picture of the guy so I don't know how he looks like in real life yet."

The intercom speaker crackled as it turned on. "Elisabeth Delmas, please report to the Principal's office. Elisabeth Delmas, please report to the Principal's office," said the voice that belonged to the Principal's personal assistant.

Sissi wiped her mouth with a napkin and stood up from the table. "Looks like daddy needs me for something." She grabbed her purse and proceeded to walk to the administrative building. "Be right back."

Nikolas waited until Sissi was out of sight before turning his attention to Herve. "You hear that?" he asked.

"Yeah," Herve responded.

"So are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Um," Herve answered, "what am I supposed to be thinking?"

Nikolas smacked his forehead with his hand. "And everyone thinks I'm the dumb one," he mumbled to himself. "Look, do you think this guy will show up this time?"

"Uh, probably not," he answered.

"And how do you think Sissi will feel?"

"Pretty lousy."

"Exactly," Nikolas said. "Now how do you think she'll feel if you came up to her and confessed your love to her?"

"I don't know," Herve answered.

"I don't either but if you don't do it after school today, not only will you never have a chance again, you could lose her forever."

Nikolas' last statement struck a chord with Herve. He was right. It was now or never. "I'll do it!" Herve said. Nikolas nodded as he took a sip of water. Not only did he believe that this was the right thing to do, he also believed that this would stop Herve from acting so pathetic whenever he was around Sissi.

Odd took his dish and sat down with the rest of his friends. Instead of being the usual happy person he was every day, Odd looked upset. "I can't believe that I got detention today out of all days," he said as he attacked his tuna.

Jeremie adjusted his glasses. "Well, Odd, what did you expect? Not only did you show up Jim on the obstacle course, you insulted him for no being able to clear it in the first place."

"Hey," Odd said. "All I asked was whether or not his old age prevented him from clearing the course. It wasn't my fault that he took it so personally."

"And now you know," Ulrich said, rubbing it in just a little.

"Yeah, yeah," Odd mumbled. "Hey, Ulrich, can you do me a favor?"

"What is it?" he asked.

"Well," Odd said, "I was supposed to meet up with that girl after school by the bleachers but since I have detention, could you meet up with her and tell her I'll be late?"

"Um," Ulrich said, looking at Yumi. He was supposed to have another study date with her today and wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. She nodded to him, signaling that it was going to be fine. "OK, what does she look like?"

"I don't know. Didn't get a chance to meet her yesterday. She did say she was going to be wearing red sunglasses."

"Alright, I'll let her know you'll be a little late."

"Thanks, Ulrich," Odd said with a smile. "You're the best."

Hours passed before the final bell rung. Ulrich walked towards the bleachers mumbling under his breath, There were several things he could have been doing after school yet he decided to go play messenger and deliver a message for his friend. Not that he didn't want to help Odd out of a jam but when one of the things he wanted to do was hang out with Yumi, helping out a friend for such a trivial matter seemed low on his list of priorities. Just when things were already going bad, he felt someone take a jab at his right shoulder. He turned right, ready to unleash hell until he realized who had just hit him.

"Mind if I come along?" Yumi asked.

Ulrich suddenly felt all of that anger melt away. The scowl that was on his face just a few moments ago transformed into a big smile. "Sure. I could use the company."

Yumi smiled when she saw her friend do the same. "I can see that," she said. Both of them walked together until they reached the bleachers. As expected, there weren't as many people in comparison to the quad. However, with an impromptu game happening on the field, the crowd watching was still sizable. "So what are we looking for?" she asked.

"According to Odd, a girl wearing red sunglasses," Ulrich said as he scanned the area.

Yumi had found the only girl in the vicinity matching the description. "I found her. She's right over..." She paused when she realized who it was. "Oh no," she said as she pointed at the girl in question.

Ulrich looked over where Yumi was pointing at. The look of shock spread over his face. "You have got to be kidding me!"

Yumi shared his expression as both of them realized that the girl in the red sunglasses was none other than Sissi Delmas. She leaned over to Ulrich's side and covered her mouth with her hand so that no one would read her lips. "Did you know that it was Sissi that Odd was talking to?"

"No way!" he said. "You know how much they hate each other. There's no way he would be interested in her."

Yumi nodded. "Maybe you're right. Besides, I think Herve is going to try something here," she said as both of them saw Herve approach Sissi. While studying was going to be important, they both decided to stick around and see what happens next.

Sissi was sitting on the bottom level of the bleachers when she was approached by Herve. She was casually watching the game when she felt a tap on the shoulder. Her brief look of happiness when she felt the tap turned to disappointment when she found out just who had done that. "What's up?" she asked.

Herve stood there for a moment with both of his hands behind his back. "Um, Sissi can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked.

Sissi sighed. "Sure, but can you make it quick? I have to meet someone here in a minute."

Herve's voice suddenly carried a lighter tone to it. "Actually," he said, "I need to talk to you privately."

Sissi's face changed to reflect a look of concern. Though she never really cared about him, the tone of voice and words used made this seem like a rather serious matter. She got up from her seat and followed Herve behind the bleachers. "What is it, Herve?" she asked.

"Well," he said as he pulled his collar away from his body. "I've kinda known you for quite some time now and..." He paused for a moment as he wiped the sweat from his brow. "Well, you're a really sweet girl and everything and..." He cleared his throat. "You're so beautiful that..."

Sissi had a confused look on her face. "What are you trying to say, Herve?"

Herve fidgeted. It was now or never. In a stroke of courage, he finally blurted out what he had always wanted to say ever since the first day they met. "I LOVE YOU, ELISABETH DELMAS!"

The team on the field had just scored a goal, causing the crowd to cheer as loudly as possible. While this also ensured that no one would hear what Herve proclaimed to the world, Sissi heard loud and clear. She put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down for a bit. "I'm sorry, Herve," she said in a soft tone, "but I just don't feel the same way." She began to walk away when Herve managed to grab her by the wrist. "What are you doing?" she asked with a tone of fear in her voice.

"No, please," Herve pleaded. His sadness at being rejected had quickly turned into delirium as tears began to flow down his face. "I've followed you for so long. I stood by while Ulrich rejected you day in and day out. If you gave me the word, I would have killed him where he stood. I..."

"Let me go!" she demanded. "You're scaring me."

"But Sissi, I..."

Sissi cocked back her free hand and let it fly towards Herve. Another goal scored by one of the teams on the field and the cheers that would follow drowned out the fierce sound of Sissi's open hand slapping Herve. The force was strong enough to both knock the glasses out of his face and knock him to the ground. The blow immediately caused him to let her go. She rubbed her wrist as she saw her friend lay on the ground, still reeling from blow he just took. "I'm sorry," she said as she quickly walked away from the scene.

Yumi and Ulrich had a good view of the whole scene. Ulrich stood there with his mouth agape as Yumi leaned over. "That didn't turn out good."

"Did I miss anything?"

Ulrich and Yumi turned around to see Odd coming towards them. Odd pulled down his hood and took a few breaths before calming down from his short run. "Woah," he said as he saw Herve laying on the ground. "What happened to Herve?"

"You don't want to know," Yumi responded, still not believing what she and Ulrich just witnessed.

Odd shrugged. "So did you give her the message?" he asked Ulrich.

Ulrich looked at Yumi who looked back at him. They couldn't tell him that the girl he was looking for could be Sissi. Besides, they weren't even sure that Sissi was even the one in question. "Sorry, man, she wasn't here."

"Oh, I see." Odd pulled his hood back up and walked away slowly, disappointed that he missed her once more.

Yumi turned to Ulrich. "You think that it was right we didn't tell him the truth?"

"Well," he started, "Better for him to never know than to be bitter about it." Yumi nodded in agreement before the both of them walked towards her house for the study date they had planned together. Halfway to the house, Ulrich decided to ask his good friend a question. "Hey Yumi?"

"Yeah?"

"Promise me that if ever get as hysterical as Herve, you bring me back to reality ASAP."

Yumi looked at him puzzled. Before she could say anything, Ulrich took her hand into his. She looked into his face and saw him blushing, which in turn made her blush. They both smiled as they spent the rest of the journey walking hand in hand.

Sissi locked her door as she sat down at her desk. The day was not kind to her so far. First she wasn't able to meet up with her date again. Then Herve's profession of love to her almost turned violent. She needed to do something to calm down her nerves. She fired up her computer and entered the chat room. As she did, she saw that OddDog was already there casually talking among the other chat room members. A feeling of unease hit her stomach as she knew she would have to talk to him eventually about what happened today. While she didn't want to talk about it, she felt it was better to get it out of the way now. She sent him a private chat request. A few moments later he had accepted.

** LizzyKitty ** What happened to you today?

** OddDog ** Long story, but in the end I got detention for an hour.

** LizzyKitty ** Oh, I see.

** OddDog ** I sent a friend of mine to give you a message but he said he couldn't find you.

** LizzyKitty ** Yeah... that's a long story of my own.

** OddDog ** What happened?

** LizzyKitty ** Well, as I was waiting around for you, someone else I knew came up to me and confessed his love for me.

** OddDog ** Oh.

** LizzyKitty ** I told him I didn't feel the same way. Then he started to go crazy. Before I knew it he grabbed me by the wrist. I was thinking he would get violent so I slapped him then ran off.

** OddDog ** Oh man. Are you ok?

** LizzyKitty ** Yeah, I'm OK. I calmed down a bit.

** LizzyKitty ** You know, I think we should just stop trying to meet up.

** OddDog ** What? What brought this up?

** LizzyKitty ** For the past two days, every time we try to meet up, something goes wrong that causes us to miss each other.

** LizzyKitty ** It's like fate is telling us that it wasn't meant to be.

** OddDog ** No, please, give it another chance.

** LizzyKitty ** But...

** OddDog ** I'm not a big believer in fate. I just think that all of this was bad timing, that's all.

** LizzyKitty ** And if I give it another chance and we still can't meet up, what happens then?

** OddDog ** Then I'll drop the subject and we never talk about it again.

** OddDog ** But we have to try.

** OddDog ** Just once more... please?

**LizzyKitty thinks**

** LizzyKitty ** If I say yes, when and where?

** OddDog ** After school in the park. No one ever goes there.

** LizzyKitty ** And if I don't see you there?

** OddDog ** Like I said, we don't talk about it ever again.

** LizzyKitty ** Then you better be there. I don't take disappointment kindly.

** OddDog ** I promise I'll be there.

Sissi exited the chat room. She folded her arms and placed them on her table, resting her chin on top of them. As she stared at the blank screen, she sighed. She hoped that things would go well tomorrow since having her emotions pulled was not how she wanted to remember him by.


	10. The Revelation

Lunch time had arrived. Yumi took her tray of beef stew and walked towards her usual table. She passed by Sissi's table and saw her sitting with both Herve and Nikolas as if nothing had happened the day before. The tray landed on the table as she greeted everyone present before eating her lunch.

"So, Odd," Jeremie said, "What happened with that girl?"

"Well," he said as he took a bite from a carrot, "The last two times we tried to meet up something went wrong. This time, though, things will be different."

"You guys are finally going to meet each other this time?" Aelita asked.

Odd nodded. "If it doesn't happen now, it'll never happen."

"Good luck with that," she said. "Third time will be the charm for you, I just know it."

The afternoon bell had rung signaling the end of classes for the day. For Odd, the day could not have ended soon enough. He made a dash over to the park and sat on a bench, prepared to wait. As he expected, there was no one in sight, meaning that it should be easy for him to find the girl he was looking for. He continued sitting and waiting. Every five minutes he would look at his watch. Every five minutes no one would show up. One hour had passed when Odd sighed. He got up and looked around once more to find no one there. While he didn't believe in fate, he was starting to believe that maybe OddDog and LizzyKitty were just never meant to be. He took the long walk back to his dorm room when he heard the faint sound of crying. He followed the sound to the other end of the park and found the source. He walked over to try and rectify the situation.

Sissi leaned forward on the park bench sobbing with her hands on her face. "Stood up, as usual," she thought to herself. Just when she was finally over Ulrich and ready to get back into the dating scene again, out comes another boy that succeeded in taking her heart and breaking it. Not only that, she would have to relive the situation over again when AnnRKay would inevitably ask her what had happened today. "Maybe I should just swear off boys altogether and become a nun," she thought. "Or maybe..." Her train of thought stopped as she saw Odd Della Robbia standing beside her. Now a bad day had become much worse. "What do you want?" she spat out.

"I just wanted to see where the crying was coming from," Odd answered in a calm tone of voice.

Sissi refused to believe that her nemesis had suddenly started to care about others, especially herself. "Look, if you came to laugh at me or insult me or... anything like that, just go ahead and do it! I don't really care anymore." She continued sobbing as he glared at him.

Odd took out a handkerchief and handed it to Sissi who looked shocked at his gesture of kindness. "I just can't stand to see a girl cry, no matter who it is. Can I sit here?" She nodded as he sat and leaned forward to meet her eye to eye. "So what's wrong?" he asked.

She wiped her tears with the handkerchief before answering. "I just got stood up by some guy. What makes it worse is that this guy promised me he would see me. I told him to forget about it but them he convinced me to trust him and I did. And this is what I get for trusting people."

"Trusting people doesn't always end badly," Odd said, trying to console her. "I mean, what about Herve and Nikolas? You trust them and they haven't done anything to hurt you."

"Actually," she said as she wiped her face once more, "Herve told me yesterday that he loved me. When I told him I didn't feel the same way, he began to get violent. I slapped him then ran off."

"So that's what happened," he said, suddenly gaining enlightenment. "I wondered how he got that welt on his face."

Sissi stifled a giggle as she raised her hand halfway. "Yeah, that was me."

"Remind me never to get on your bad side like that," he said jokingly.

Sissi giggled again, the laughter making her forget about crying. "You know," she said looking at Odd, "I don't know why I'm even telling you all of this. I mean, I'm sitting here with all these problems trying to get a guy and I'm talking to the Kadic Casanova. A man who has no problems getting any girl in the school and beyond. You can't possibly relate to the problem I'm having."

Odd cleared his throat and faced down. "Actually, I know exactly how you feel."

"You're full of crap!" she exclaimed.

Odd faced Sissi again. "No. it's true. Yeah, I can go ahead and date any girl in this place. Problem is I don't want to date anymore. I want a relationship."

Sissi shot a look of confusion. "What do you mean?"

Odd looked straight ahead towards the campus. "OK, look at Yumi and Ulrich. Or look at Jeremie and Aelita. Both of those couples are happy. They love being with each other. They can talk about anything and be happy doing absolutely nothing as long as they have each other. Yeah, they haven't told each other how they feel but you can instantly tell that once they do, they'll have nothing but happiness ahead of them."

Sissi sill looked confused. "Don't you get the same thing?"

He laughed as he looked down briefly before looking at Sissi once more. "When I date a girl, it's usually a one or two time thing. I get with them, get happy for a bit, suddenly find something wrong with them, break up, then go home alone. It was fun the first few times but now I'm tired of it all. I just want to have one girlfriend that's willing to make the relationship last as long as possible. Someone that's not afraid to take things to a deeper level. I just don't want to be the single guy anymore, you know?"

Sissi nodded. "You didn't have to come over and listen to my problems, you know. I would have been OK by myself."

"Sorry," he said, "but like I said before, I can't stand seeing any girl cry, no matter who it is. I've always been trying to cheer up my 5 sisters anytime they had problems and that carried over to all the girls I meet. It's just something I do."

Sissi handed the handkerchief back and smiled. "Well, thanks for cheering me up. It really helped."

Odd smiled back. "Thank YOU for listening to my problems. I don't even think I told the gang about what I'm going through. You're not such a bad person after all."

"Well," she started, "I did have some growing up to do compared to how I was before. But I have to say that you're a good guy too."

Odd grinned at the sentiment. "By the way," he said, "I know it's none of my business, but who's this guy that stood you up?"

Sissi laughed. "Oh man, just some guy in an online chat room calling himself OddDog. Why?"

Odd's face drew a look of both surprise and confusion. "You mean..." He paused for a moment. "You don't happen to be called LizzyKitty online."

"I am, but..." Sissi stopped herself. Both of them shared the same look of confused surprise. All of this time, two sworn enemies who had despised each other whenever they met were more than civil whenever they talked online. The look of anger was quickly replaced by looks of disgust and anger. Sissi shot up. "What the hell is wrong with you!" she shouted. "You don't get enough girls already? Now you have to go stalking them online?"

Odd shot up next. "Look who's talking!" he shouted back. "You're the one who's so desperate looking for a date that you're willing to go online for one."

Sissi started fuming at that last comment. "At least I'm not the one who tries to smooth talk a girl only to turn around and drive them away by being an immature jerk!"

Odd was taken aback by that last comment. "Hey, I never stalked someone for years when they obviously weren't even remotely interested in me!"

"You know what? I'm leaving. I don't need to sit here and be insulted by some caveman all day long."

"Fine, I'm gone. Hanging around you is just cramping my style anyway."

Both of them took a few steps in opposite directions. Suddenly, Odd turned around and faced Sissi's direction. "You know what?"

"What!" she shouted as she turned around to face him.

"For a moment back there, I felt like kissing you. I felt like you were the girl I was looking for. But forget it! Obviously this chat room thing and meeting up was all a mistake." he turned around and began to walk away.

"Do it then!"

Odd turned around once more. "What?"

"Do it! Or are you all talk and nothing to show for it?"

"Fine! I'll do it!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

Odd marched over to Sissi. He grabbed her by the back of the head and pulled her towards him. His lips firmly placed against hers. He felt some resistance but continued anyway, wanting to prove to her that he was always a man of his word.

Sissi's eyes widened as their lips met. She couldn't believe that he actually kissed her. What's more, it was actually good. She pushed him away to stop him and the look of surprised on her face changed to that of anger. To his eyes, she was unimpressed. "You call that a kiss?" she asked. With that she grabbed him and pulled him towards her. Her lips had touched him, giving back the same passion and force that Odd had given her.

Odd's eyes widened. Like Sissi, he couldn't believe what she was doing. He also couldn't believe that he was enjoying this moment. He pushed her away to stop her and to catch his breath. He, too, shot a look of anger to let her know he was unimpressed by her move.

"You know... oh, forget it."

The former adversaries moved in towards each other and began to lock lips once more. His arms wrapped around her waist while hers arms were wrapped around his neck. Each kiss they gave each other no longer had the force of anger behind them. Now the forces of passion and desire were the causes of each movement. As hey kissed, Odd moved Sissi and pinned her to a large oak tree. She offered no resistance as they continued making out. Time passed slowly for them as they realized they were attracted to each other more than they would have liked to admit. As time move forward, students and faculty alike passed by the park. Thanks to the oak tree, however, none of them could see that two bitter enemies had quickly become more than good friends.


	11. After the Date

Sissi booted up her computer and headed to the chat room. She immediately found the person she was looking for and fired of a private chat request.

** LizzyKitty ** Hey there.

** AnnRKay ** Hey.

** LizzyKitty ** So how are you and TechKey doing?

** AnnRKay ** Pretty good. He got me flowers today. A nice bouquet of different flowers.

** LizzyKitty ** Oooo, very romantic.

** AnnRKay ** I thought so too. That's why I like him so much.

** LizzyKitty ** Awww, cute.

** AnnRKay ** Stop. So, how did it go with OddDog?

** LizzyKitty ** Well, I finally got to meet him in person.

** AnnRKay ** Oh? How did that go?

** LizzyKitty ** It was good.

** AnnRKay ** Good? That's it?

** LizzyKitty ** Yeah, it was good.

** AnnRKay ** Boo! I was expecting so much more out of that.

** AnnRKay ** So what did you two do when you met.

** LizzyKitty ** Y'know, the usual stuff. We talked. Talked some more. Kissed. Left.

** AnnRKay ** Ah, ok... waitaminute. WHAT?!?

** LizzyKitty ** What?

** AnnRKay ** You kissed him?

** LizzyKitty ** No way. He kissed me first.

** LizzyKitty ** Then I kissed him.

** LizzyKitty ** And then we started making out.

**AnnRKay screams**

** AnnRKay ** Girl, making out on your fist date isn't considered good.

** LizzyKitty ** Huh?

** AnnRKay ** It's considered lucky.

** AnnRKay ** So how long were you guys kissing?

** LizzyKitty ** I'm not sure. One minute I saw the sun still out, the next minute I see the campus lights come on.

** AnnRKay ** Oh my gosh!

** AnnRKay ** So I guess you're really into this guy.

** LizzyKitty ** Still too early to tell. But he is kinda cute.

** AnnRKay ** Awww.

** AnnRKay ** Anyway, gotta head out and attend to my man. I need details next time you meet your new boyfriend.

** LizzyKitty ** OK. Later.

Sissi shut down her computer and went to bed. She had a hard time sleeping, though, since she was to excited to see Odd again.

Ulrich had just come back from brushing his teeth when he entered his dorm room. He yawned as he entered and noticed that Odd had just jumped into bed. He shut off the lights and prepared to go to sleep himself. "Night, Odd," he said as he pulled the covers over himself.

"Night, buddy," Odd responded. A few minutes later, Odd sat up and moaned.

Ulrich, not quite asleep yet, turned to face him. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Odd whined, "I can't sleep. Can you tell me a bedtime story?"

Ulrich couldn't believe what he was hearing, especially coming from Odd. "Um, aren't you too old for that sort of thing?"

Odd whined again. "But, Ulrich..."

The brown haired boy became annoyed. However, he really did want to get some sleep and would do anything to shut his roommate up. "Fine, what kind of story do you want to hear?"

"The one about you and Yumi at her place again."

Ulrich cringed. He knew that there was something wrong with Odd. This time, though, he did have a counter-attack for him curious friend. "Only if you tell me about you and internet-girl."

"Hey, no fair!" he exclaimed. "I asked you first."

"How about we flip for it?" Ulrich reached for a coin on top of his nightstand. "Call it."

"Tails" Odd claimed.

Ulrich launched the coin in the air with his thumb. He caught it on it's descent and slammed it on the back of his hand. "Heads!"

"Shoot!" Odd said with disappointment. He wanted some details on the most reluctant couple in all of Kadic but to do so, he would have to give up some details of his own. "So what do you want to know?"

"Hmm, let's see. How about everything."

"Sorry," Odd said. "There really isn't much to tell you. We met up, talked for a bit, then started making out."

"Sounds typical enough. You do end up kissing every girl you go after," Ulrich said as a matter of fact.

"Except Aelita," he reminded him.

"And if you value your life against Jeremie, you wouldn't do it either." Ulrich reminded him. "So is she everything you thought she would be?"

Odd thought about that for a bit. "No, but it worked out well anyway."

"So what's her name?"

Silence permeated throughout the room. "Odd?" Ulrich called out again. He was met with loud snores from his roommate. While Odd never snored, Ulrich knew he didn't want to talk about it anymore and used the snoring as a signal that he wanted the subject dropped. Since he didn't want to tell Odd about his adventures with Yumi either, this was just fine for him.


	12. A Beautiful Bouquet

Lunch had arrived and grilled chicken was on the menu. Odd had picked up his plate and headed for his usual table with his usual friends. As he walked, he looked over at Sissi's table and shot her a wink. She caught sight of this and winked back, smiling. He approached the table and noticed that all of his friends were actively talking amongst themselves. Once he sat down, however, they had all stopped. If it wasn't for the fact that he was hungry, he would have asked what was wrong with all of them.

The rest of the Lyoko gang looked at each other, wondering who would be the one to break the silence. After years of getting ribbed by Odd, it was time for all of them to turn the tables on him. Each of the potential couples had reasons of their own to start teasing Odd but they were also gracious enough to give the other party a chance. Finally, Aelita decided that she would do the honors.

"So how does she taste?

Odd, and just about everyone else at the table, almost choked on their food when they heard Aelita say that. She looked at everyone curiously until she realized that what she had said sounded very bad.

"Oh dear," she said as she tried to backtrack her statement. "What I meant to say was 'How well does she kiss?'"

Odd took a sip of water and some time to recover. Aelita's first statement was not only wrong but took him by surprise. Her second statement had less shock value to it but was still as surprising. He knew his friends would start asking him about his date since that's all he talked about for the past few days. What he didn't expect was that Aelita would be the one to start asking first. Odd took on a faux aristocratic tone as he said, "I'm sorry, madam, but a gentlemen does not kiss and tell."

"But Ulrich already told us you told him about it," Jeremie chimed in.

Odd glared at Ulrich. There were certain things guys only talked about amongst themselves, especially if it was about girls. "Dude," he said, "That's not fair. I only told you about that so you'd tell me about what happened to you yesterday!"

"Oh? What happened to you yesterday, Ulrich?" Yumi asked, folding her arms and shooting Ulrich a death stare. Both of them agreed that they would tell the rest of the group about their relationship when the time was right. As of now, the time was definitely not right.

Ulrich looked panicked. Not only did he called out by his best friend but by his new girlfriend as well. He took a gulp and tried to come up with a quick way to recover. "Nothing happened yesterday," he said to Yumi. He then turned his attention to Odd, folding his arms and shooting him a serious glare. "Dude, making up stuff about me isn't cool."

Odd knew what Ulrich was doing and accepted it. He looked at both Jeremie and Aelita for some support but saw that they were simply enjoying the scene happening in front of them. He told himself that he would get revenge on those two someday but, for now, he simply resorted to rolling his eyes and turning his focus back to his lunch.

Sissi was busy eating her lunch with Nikolas and Herve. As she looked up for a moment, she saw that Jim had entered the cafeteria with a bouquet in one hand. She turned her focus to her food then looked up again to see that Jim had stopped at her table.

"Ms. Delmas," the gym instructor said, "These belong to you."

"Aww, Jim, you shouldn't have," she said as she accepted the bouquet of assorted flowers. "But, aren't I a little young for you?"

"Very funny," Jim said, not amused by the comment. "Actually, I was just told to deliver this to you. I have no idea who it's from."

Sissi pulled out a card placed inside the bouquet. "Um, what about the card?"

Jim realized that the card could have had the name of the sender on it, making him look foolish. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I don't go prying into the love lives of the students. Now, if you excuse me, I have more pressing matters to attend to."

As Jim walked out of the cafeteria, Sissi looked at the bouquet and smelled it. It was a colorful set that was very pleasing to the eye. The fragrance matched the flowers, providing a scent that was a pleasant blend of smells mixed together nicely. As she sat and appreciated the floral display, she looked around and saw that all of the student body present in the cafeteria had turned their attention towards her. No one had any idea that Sissi had any admirers aside from Herve and Nikolas and everyone knew both of them wouldn't have the guts to try and pull of a stunt like this. Sissi panicked. The attention from everyone and the whispering about her flowers and its implications were too much for her to handle. She had to come up with a plan and fast. Something that would divert attention away from her and get everything back to normal. As she placed the card in her pocket, she left the bouquet on the table and got up from her chair. With all eyes on her, she went to the other side of the table and hugged Nikolas.

"Oh, thank you, Nikolas. That is so sweet to give a girl flowers." With that she picked up her bouquet and walked off.

Everyone shifted their attention to Nikolas. All of them were shocked except for Herve. After being rejected days before, finding out that his best friend was trying to steal his crush was devastating. His eyebrows arched down in anger as he glared at the one who was responsible.

"You bastard!" he shouted as he lunged forward trying to choke the life out of Nikolas. As Herve has his hands wrapped around his throat, he sported a look of surprise as the seemingly dim-witted boy tried to convince his intellectual friend that he wasn't the one sending flowers to Sissi. Herve was deaf to those pleas as he continued the strangle his friend to the amusement of some and the shock of others. Upon hearing the commotion, both Jim and Principal Delmas entered the cafeteria and separated the two.

"My office, immediately!" the Principal shouted as Jim dragged the duo away.

"What do you suppose got into Herve?" Jeremie asked, still not believing what had just transpired in front of him.

"I have no idea," Odd said. He, too, could not believe what had just happened but for completely different reasons.

As Sissi went back to her dorm room to put the flowers away in a vase, she pulled out the card from her pocket and read it again.

--Sissi,

Yesterday felt like a dream to me. Hopefully, I'll never have to wake up from it again.

Odd--


	13. Birds and Bees

The school bell had rung and the gang had gone off to do their own things. Jeremie and Aelita were off to the factory to continue their work with the Lyoko supercomputer. Yumi and Jeremie were studying together again for the big test coming up. Odd, however, was laying down in his bed, questioning what had just happened earlier that day. Was the note written correctly? Did she not want others to know who really sent over the flowers? Why did she pin it all on Nikolas? He was confused and wanted answers.

Odd walked to the girls' floor, located one floor above his. Due to the fact that Aelita's room was close to Sissi's, he was able to find her room right away. He looked around and made sure that no one was around before he knocked on the door.

The door opened slightly as Sissi peeked out to see who was there. "Hey," she said, smiling as she opened the door wider to greet him.

Odd waved. "Can I come in? I need to talk to you."

"Sure thing." She moved aside to let him through. As soon as he got in, he saw the bouquet of flowers he had given her along with the card placed right beside it. She started to talk before Odd could say a word. "Sorry about today but I panicked. Everyone looking at me made me so nervous and I didn't know what they would think if they knew you and I were now an item."

Odd looked into her eyes, trying to give her some reassurance. "Look, you shouldn't have to hide that in front of everyone else. So they know we've fought a lot in the past. It didn't matter what they thought back then and it shouldn't matter now that we've gotten together."

"And what about your friends?"

"What about them?" Odd asked.

Sissi sighed. "Did you forget about the history between me and Ulrich and Yumi?"

Odd couldn't forget, nor could anyone else for that matter. Everyone on campus knew of the long-standing, one-sided crush the Principal's daughter had on the most popular boy on campus. They also knew of the insane jealousy Yumi had over that crush. It was no secret that she would stare at Sissi with cold, piercing eyes and wish her dead anytime she got near Ulrich. People hoped that she would give up the chase lest she get hurt and they were relieved when Sissi finally gave up on Ulrich some time ago.

"Good point," Odd responded. "But you do know that they'll find out sooner or later."

Sissi nodded. "I just don't think now is the right time. At least, not yet."

Odd inched closer to Sissi. "Well," he said as he leaned in and wrapped his arms around her waist, "I do know what its time for now."

"And what's that?" she asked as she placed her hands on his shoulders.

The Kadic Casanova closed his eyes and pressed his lips on hers. Sissi giggled a bit as the first kiss ended and hers began. The rumors about Odd were indeed true, she thought to herself. He was a smooth talker when he wanted to be and a good kisser to boot. While she knew that last fact before, she thought he was even better when he didn't have any pent up emotions inside. Just as they were both beginning to enjoy the moment and each other, a knock came from the dorm room door. Odd whined, not wanting the moment to end. Sissi, on the other hand, just wanted to make the person go away so they wouldn't be interrupted. After a few moments with no answer, the knock came again. Visibly annoyed, she broke off from the kiss. "Who is it?" she asked as she faced the closed door.

"It's your father. May I come in?"

"Just a second," she shouted out. She turned back to Odd who, just like her, had a look of shock on his face. For any father, seeing his only daughter in the arms of any boy was bad. Seeing them kissing in her room was worse. Seeing that the boy was Odd, whom Principal Delmas thought was nothing but a bad influence, was grounds for murder. They both looked around for a hiding spot. "Under the bed," she whispered. Odd crawled under the bed while Sissi made sure the bed skirt covered his presence thoroughly. After making sure everything was good, she opened the door and greeted her father. "Hi, daddy!" she said as she gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Principal Delmas grinned at the sight of his daughter. It was one of the few times he could act more like a father than a Principal. "Elisabeth, I need to talk to you for a moment."

"Sure." she stepped aside to let him in. "What is it?"

"Well, dear, I think it's best if you and I have a seat." Sissi sat down on her bed when her father sat beside her.

The mattress and box spring of the bed lowered themselves and pressed down on Odd's back. Odd tried to scream but caught himself before a sound had come out. He knew that Principal Delmas was a heavy set man by looking at him. Until all of that weight had pressed down upon him, he had no idea that he was really as heavy as he looked. He clenched his teeth and tried to bear the pain for as long as he could.

"It's about your friends Herve and Nikolas," the Principal continued.

Sissi looked scared. "Did they get expelled?"

Principal Delmas shook his head. "They're both good students, so expulsion was going to be too extreme of a punishment. A 3 week detention was more appropriate. However, that's not why I came to talk to you." Sissi looked puzzled as he continued. "When I asked Herve why he had attacked Nikolas, he said it was because he thought Nikolas had sent you a bouquet of flowers and you hugged him in return." He looked at the bouquet sitting on the desk, affirming the boys' claims. "Is this true?"

Sissi acted sheepishly at the question. "Well, yeah," she said.

"Do you like him?"

"I... don't know," she said, trying to see where the conversation was going to go from here.

Principal Delmas' eyes widened. He took of his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger before putting them back on. "Oh dear," he exclaimed as he took a deep breath and looked outside of the dorm room window.

Sissi was now genuinely concerned over her father's sudden change in behavior. "What's wrong, daddy?" she asked.

Principal Delmas took another deep breath as he shifted his gaze from the window to the floor. He closed his eyes for a moment before opening them and turned face his daughter. "Elisabeth," he said, "Ever since your mother passed away, I have been trying to take care of you to the best of my ability."

"And you're doing a wonderful job of that," Sissi interrupted.

Principal Delmas blushed "Yes, well, be that as it may, there are times where I miss your mother. A father raising a daughter by himself is difficult enough but there are times where a mother is the only one who could give the best advice a daughter would need."

"Um, daddy..." Sissi said, interrupting her father again.

The Principal raised his hand. "P... Please, let me finish." He cleared his throat before continuing. "Now, like I said, there are times where only a mother would be the one best qualified to give her daughter some advice. I mean, I remember when you were still a small child and you used to pretend you would bake cakes and cook dinners and clean the house. Now you've grown up so fast. I mean, look at you. You've grown into a beautiful young lady... and some of the boys on campus have taken notice to this... and with the flowers... and Nikolas... and..."

Sissi was now more more puzzled than ever. Her father had always been a very articulate man. He would only stammer when he was nervous and, at that moment, it was evident that he was very nervous about something. "What are you trying to say?" she asked.

Principal Delmas grabbed the back of his neck and winced, thinking of what he needed to say. "How do I put this? You probably noticed... um. As you get older... uh." He took a deep breath before blurting it all out. "When a man loves a woman, they..."

Sissi didn't want to know the truth but she had to ask. "Daddy are you talking about birds?" she asked slowly. He nodded. "And... bees?"

"Now, Sissi," he said, trying to explain his actions. "I know you haven't gotten there yet, but..."

Sissi screamed. One of her biggest fears had come true. Worse yet, her father was thinking that Nikolas would be involved in this equation sooner or later. "I can't believe you're talking to me about this," she screamed in embarrassment.

"Sissi, please..."

She covered her ears and slammed her body on her bed, singing to herself to drown out her father. Meanwhile, the pressure of the slam on the mattress caused Odd more pain and grief as a tear rolled down his cheek.. He felt like wanted to die or the conversation between father and daughter to end quickly. Anything to stop the pain from continuing. He reached over for one of Sissi's stiffed animals and clamped down hard.

"Sissi, calm down," Principal Delmas pleaded. He rolled her over to face him. She stopped singing and took her hands away from her ears when she saw the look on her father's face. "Now, look, I made a promise to your mother that I would do my best to care for you until my dying days. This includes any life lessons that I may not be familiar with. This is hard for me but I am your father. I just want to make sure you're well informed about things like... this."

Sissi sighed. "I know that, but I'm not a little girl anymore." Principal Delmas interrupted with a grunt of worry about that fact. "Besides, I'd like to think that I knew what I was doing when I was chasing Ulrich all that time."

The Principal's eyes narrowed. "I beg your pardon?"

Sissi winced. All this time her father had not known about her obsession with Ulrich and she was not privy to tell him about it either."That was a long time ago. I'm over him now."

Principal Delmas grunted in dissatisfaction. "At least it was Ulrich Stern. He's not a bad fellow, unlike his friend Odd Della Robbia." He shuddered at the thought of Odd even looking at his only daughter, especially since he also knew of his reputation. "Promise me you'll never see that boy. He's a bad influence and overall menace to society."

"I promise," she said, wondering how he would really react if he knew that Odd was actually in the room right now.

He smiled at that remark and gave his daughter a hug before getting up. "Alright, I better go back to work, but I'm glad we were able to have this little talk." Sissi gave a weak smile; she couldn't exactly say the same thing. He kissed her on the forehead. "Love you, sweetie."

"Love you too, daddy." She closed the door as her father exited the room. A few moments later the door knocked again. She turned around to find her father on the other side again.

"Now are you sure that you and Nikolas haven't..."

"DADDY!" she shouted.

Principal Delmas backed off. "Just making sure. Love you."

Sissi closed the door and screamed. The one disadvantage to being the Principal's daughter was that her father was there all of the time. While other kids could live their adolescent lives without much parental supervision at Kadic, she had to go through moments of embarrassment like this. As he fell back on her bed, she heard a yelp come from underneath. She shot back up, realizing that she had forgotten about Odd. She lifted up the bed skirt and pulled him from underneath the bed. His eyes were red from the tears that flowed earlier and the stuffed animal was still clamped down in his mouth. As she helped him up, he grabbed his back and squinted, reeling back from the pain. "Are you all right?" she asked.

Odd dropped the doll and gritted his teeth. "I haven't felt so much pain in my life. I thought your dad was going to kill me."

"If he found out you and I were dating, he probably would," she retorted.

He moaned. "I don't know why he doesn't like me."

"You mean aside from the 'dating his only daughter' and 'being the womanizer' thing?" she said smartly.

Odd sighed. "Hey, there's more to me than the women chasing thing."

"That's why I like you." Sissi gave him a quick kiss. "Now, you better get out of here and fix that back of yours."

"Fine." Odd began to walk out of the room. He turned around and said, "Can I ask you something?"

"What is it?" she asked as she held the door open.

Odd leaned in and returned her quick kiss with one of his own. "OK, see you tomorrow."

Sissi closed the door as Odd made his way out. She booted up her computer and smiled to herself. After today, she would have plenty to things to tell AnnRKay about.

Odd walked into his room and immediately fell face-up onto his bed. Until today, stretching out his back never felt so good.

Ulrich peered up from his book to look at his roommate. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing, but don't ever let anyone sit on your back unless you want a world of pain afterwards." Odd took a deep breath as Ulrich cocked an eyebrow, not sure exactly what he meant by that comment. Odd turned his head to face his friend. "So, what happened to you?"

"Nothing," Ulrich responded as he turned his attention back to his book.

"Yumi didn't try to kill you for what happened at lunch?" Odd asked.

"No," he said, his attention still focused on the book.

"Did she kiss you?"

"No."

"Did you kiss her?"

For a moment there was no reply. Ulrich put down his book and picked up a notebook. "I'm not answering that," he said as he picked up an pen and began writing.

Odd chuckled and looked up at the ceiling again. He could pretty much put the pieces together about what had happened. Instead of probing further at that moment, he decided to get some sleep. Hopefully him losing consciousness would ease away the pain he was still experiencing.


	14. Massage Therapy

Chicken salad sandwiches were on the menu today as students lined up to get their meal. Sissi took a bite into her sandwich and waited for Odd to walk by. As he did, she slipped a piece of paper off of the table, watching as it landed on the ground behind her target. "Hey, Odd," she shouted out, "would you mind not littering. We're trying to keep the school clean here."

Odd turned around and saw his girlfriend point at the piece of paper on the ground. He grumbled as he picked up the paper, mad at himself for not coming up with a response. He placed it in his pocket as he walked over to the table to meet up with his friends.

"How are you feeling now?" Ulrich asked just as his friend took a seat.

Odd took his hand behind his back and pushed forward. "Much better, thanks."

"Why, what happened to him?" Yumi asked.

Ulrich smiled deviously. "Oh, Jim sat on Odd's back yesterday."

"Hey," Odd said, taking a bite into his sandwich. "Stop making stuff up about me." If only they knew the truth, he said to himself.

"Well, are you going to tell us the truth?" Ulrich asked.

"Um... I'm sorry, but you don't have the right to know," he said. He wished that he could tell them all what really happened but after promising Sissi he would keep things a secret for now, he knew it was best to stay quiet.

"Then if you aren't going to tell me the truth about how you hurt yourself yesterday, I'll make it up for you," Ulrich said as he grinned.

Odd shrugged. After doing this to Ulrich and Jeremie for quite some time, he knew that he would get his one day. As the group made up some wild stories about last night's injury, he took out the paper from his pocket and read it on the side.

--Hey you,

Sorry about what happened yesterday. Let me make it up to you after school.

Sissi.--

The bell that sounded off in the afternoon signaled the end another typical school day. Just like any other school day, the gang went off to do their usual things. Aelita met up with Jeremy in the factory to work on the skid and the replication program. With XANA being relatively quiet recently, the duo figured they could use the extra time to improve things and give them an edge when the attacks should decide to continue. Ulrich and Yumi went of for another study date. Their friends knew they weren't really studying since no big tests were due anytime soon, though they will admit that Ulrich's grades did improve since he started studying with her. Still, it was a good cover and they figured if it still works, why mess with the formula.

Odd decided it would be a good time to give Kiwi a walk. He felt bad for keeping the little guy cooped up in the room all day and giving him a spare drawer to sleep in. However, school rules banning pets on the premises forced Odd to do what he had to. Still, he needed to take him out to stretch his legs, give him time to do his duty, and give himself time to think. He read the note given to him earlier by Sissi and wondered what she meant at the end? The Sissi he knew before would probably inflict more pain and misery on him. The Sissi he knew now would do something to comfort him but he still had no idea what that would be. After letting Kiwi do his thing and giving him a good walk for his troubles, he decided to go back to the dorms. As soon as he entered his room and let his dog out of his leash, he heard a knock on the door. He opened it to find Sissi standing there with her hands behind her back, doing a poor job of hiding a cloth bag that obviously had a few things in it.

"May I come in?" she asked cheerfully.

"Sure thing," he said, getting out of the way to let her in before closing the door behind her.

Sissi gave him a quick kiss before asking him a question. "So where's Ulrich?"

"Off 'studying' with Yumi again," he said, placing a good deal of emphasis on the 'studying' part.

"Aww, how cute," she responded.

Odd looked perplexed. "OK, I always wondered. When did you decide to stop chasing after Ulrich?"

Sissi placed the bag of goods beside Odd's bed before answering. "When I finally realized that after all that time spent trying to get him to like me, if he keeps rejecting, that should be a big hint to move on." She went over to her boyfriend and draped her arms over his shoulders. "Besides," she said, "I found someone better that him."

Odd grinned before grabbing her by the waist and pulling her in closer for another kiss.

"So how long is he going to be gone for?" she asked.

He looked as is watch then looked outside the window. "Quite some time," he answered. "Unless you're Jeremy, no one likes studying for 3-5 hours after school, but that's how long he goes out for."

Sissi grinned devilishly. "Plenty of time." She kissed him once more before looking into his eyes. "Hey Odd?"

Odd was stuck in a daze after that last kiss. "Yeah?"

"Take off your shirt."

That sudden comment snapped Odd back to reality. He jumped back, a look of shock and fear plastered over his face. "Um, hey, wait a minute. Don't you think that's going a little too fast? I mean, we only just started dating."

Sissi grunted. "Is that all boys think about whenever they're with a girl?"

"Well..."

"Don't answer that!" she exclaimed, her arms folded across her chest. "Now, are you going to take off your shirt or not?"

Odd did as he was commanded. Even before they hooked up he knew that crossing Sissi was a dangerous thing to do. Now that they were together, he was wondering if she had become more dangerous.

Sissi smirked when she saw Odd topless. She had always imagined that the first boy she with his shirt off would be Ulrich. She pictured him having a toned body, slightly muscular in the arms and chest section. The image of an athlete was what she wanted out of her men. What she got with Odd was scrawny by comparison. His arms were thin. His upper body showed no signs of any muscle tone or definition. He was a normal boy with a normal body. Still, Sissi did find it sexy and appealing knowing she alone would have access to it.

"Very good," she said. "Now go lie on your bed chest down, close your eyes, and relax."

Odd lay down on his bed, his head facing the wall and resting on his arms. He tensed up as he heard the rustling of the bag that was beside the bed. He made out more sounds coming from nearby. A plastic bottle being placed on his nightstand. A hardcover book being opened with pages flipped. He really had no idea what Sissi had in store for him, but knowing their history, he definitely began to fear for the worst.

"I hope you're ready for this." Sissi took off her shoes and straddled his hips. Odd winced. Most guys in this position would be more than excited at having a girl on top of them. In his case, his heart was racing for a completely different reason. As he heard the plastic bottle being obtained and opened, the scent of cinnamon filled the air. Warm, thick liquid was sparingly poured on each side of his back. Odd's look of pain changed to that of pleasure as he felt Sissi's hands rub the oil into his muscles. "Told you to relax," she said as she pressed her palms into the small of his back.

Odd's jaw dropped as he let out a deep breath and a slight moan. He had never experienced a massage before and couldn't believe how good it had felt. He purred a bit as her hands moved up towards his shoulders. "Oh man!" he exclaimed. "Where did you learn how to do this?"

Sissi smiled. "I've been reading up on this in the library. I always wanted to try this out on someone to see if I was any good."

Odd let out another moan of pleasure. "Well, you're not going to get any complaints from me." As her hands moved back down his back, he giggled.

"Something wrong?" she asked.

Odd remained smiling. "Oh, no. I was just thinking about how funny it was that we didn't know who we really were in the chat room. I mean, OddDog? LizzyKitty? You would think we would have come up with better names than that."

"Hey, they're not that bad." Her hands continued moving down his back. "You know," Sissi said, "For a second I thought you were laughing because you were ticklish."

"Me?" Odd questioned. "No way! The OddDog does not have a ticklish part in his body at all."

Sissi cocked her eyebrow. "Oh really?" she asked. She decided to test this out by poking the side of his chest.

Odd almost jumped when he felt her slender fingers touch his side. He turned to protect his sides and caught his girlfriend trying to stifle a laugh. "Wait a minute! That's not fair. I wasn't ready."

Sissi broke out into full blown laughter. "It's not my fault you lied about being ticklish."

"Oh yeah?" Odd returned the favor by poking Sissi in her sides. She yelped as she instinctively protected her sides with her elbows and leaned forwards. Odd took the opportunity to grab her and pin her back to the bed, his body hovering over hers. "Well, Ms. Delmas, what do you say to that?" he asked as he began to laugh.

Sissi poked his side again. She used the lapse in strength to flip him over so he was on his back. "I say you need more work, Mr. Della Robbia," she said as her body was now hovering over his.

Odd poked her side again and flipped her over again. "Maybe," he said, "But so do you." They both laughed for a while, acknowledging that both of them just lost an impromptu tickle fight. As the laughter died down, the couple began gazing into each other's eyes. "Did I ever tell you that you have beautiful eyes?" he asked as he supported himself with his forearms.

Sissi smiled in appreciation. "Shut up and kiss me."

Odd closed his eyes as he leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. His hands brushed her hair while hers caressed his back. Both of them breathed deeply as they enjoyed each other's company. While time passed normally for everyone else, for these two, time had all but stopped.

Ulrich entered the dorm building with his MP3 player on. As he walked through the hallways and went up the stairs, all he could hear was the music Yumi had just given him. Her musical choices didn't always match up with his but he did enjoy this album he was given. He reminded himself to thank her later with some songs of his own. As he approached his door and turned off his music player, he heard a laugh that was all too familiar coming from the other side of the door. He opened the door and caught a quick glance of a shirtless Odd making out with a girl on his bed.

"Sorry," he said as he quickly shut the door. He began to walk away when he began to realize just who the girl was. The long black hair. The side profile of the face. The unmistakable, almost whiny laugh. The girl on the other side of the door, the one that was on Odd's bed, was... Sissi.

Ulrich began to panic. His first instinct was to go back inside his dorm room and see if it really was Sissi there. As he placed his hand on the door knob, several questions ran through his mind. What if it really was her? How would he react? How would she react? How would Odd react? What if it wasn't her? What would Odd think about having his best friend interrupt them twice? Also, why was Odd shirtless? Were they just making out or...? He stopped himself from finishing that last question. He took his hand away from the door and took a quick walk to Jeremie's room.

The romantic trance that both Sissi and Odd were in broke when the door had closed. Sissi looked at the door causing Odd to do the same. "What was that?" she asked.

"I have no idea," he answered. "Wait, what time is it?"

Sissi look at her watch. "Past dinner, that's for sure."

Odd shot straight up and jumped out of his bed. "Oh no! I think that was Ulrich."

"What?" she exclaimed. She got up and started to straighten herself out. "How did we lose track of time like that?"

"I don't know," Odd answered as he found his shirt and put it back on. "Do you think he saw anything?"

"I don't know," Sissi answered, gathering all of her things together in her bag. "But I've gotta go."

"Hold on a sec." Odd cracked open his door and took a peek outside. No one there. He opened the door wider and stuck his head outside. The entire hallway was devoid of people. "OK, it's clear."

Sissi took a peek outside herself before stepping out of the door. She turned back to face Odd and asked, "So, are you feeling any better?"

"Much better," he answered grinning.

She leaned in and sniffed his neck. "Mmm, that massage oil makes you smell nice." He responded to that compliment by pecking at her neck. Sissi almost dropped her bag and got lost in his charms again but caught herself at the last minute when she pulled away. "Darn it, you'll get me stuck here again. Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow."

Odd waved as she went off to her floor. He closed the door and leaned against it, taking a deep breath. "OK, calm down," he said to himself. "Act normally and Ulrich won't suspect a thing. Right, Kiwi?"

The little dog woke up briefly from his sleep to look at his master. He let out a quick bark before yawning and going back to his slumber.


	15. Paranoia

Ulrich got to Jeremie's door and knocked. As he waited, he had realized that both he and Aelita were still at the factory working on the skid. Just when he began to walk away, Ulrich heard the door unlock and saw Jeremie on the other side of an open door.

"What's up, Ulrich?" he asked.

"Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure thing." Jeremie opened the door wider to let his friend in.

Ulrich came in the room and saw Aelita sitting on the bed with a computer on her lap. "Oh, hey Aelita," he said. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"Not at all," she answered as she set aside her laptop. "What's going on?"

Ulrich sat on the floor while Jeremie went back to his computer chair. "Well, I just walked in on Odd with another girl."

"Oh, that's bad," Jeremie said.

"Yeah, and he was shirtless with her on his bed."

"Oh, that's worse," Aelita chimed in.

"Yeah, but the worst part is who he was with."

"I figure it's the girl he's been talking to online," Jeremie said. "So who is it?"

Ulrich winced. "I think it's... Sissi."

Jeremie and Aelita looked at each other in silence. A few moments later both of them exploded into laughter. Ulrich had expected this type of reaction but his face still displayed his annoyance.

Aelita was the first one to regain her composure. "Hold on a second here," she said as she wiped away tears from her eyes. "You're talking about Sissi. Elisabeth Delmas. The Principal's daughter, right?"

Ulrich nodded. "Unless you know another Sissi."

"There's no way it can be her," she said. "I mean, you see how much they hate each other. Why would they even think of hooking up together."

Ulrich threw his hands up in the air. "I don't know, but I know I saw her."

Jereme finally calmed down from his laughing fit. "OK, so how do you know it was her?"

"All right, I'm not 100 sure, but I caught a glimpse of the girl's face and I swear it had to be her," he said, further convinced that he was right.

Jeremie looked back at Aelita before looking at Ulrich again. "Wow. That's unbelievable. So you walked in on Odd and Sissi having sex."

Ulrich's frustration showed on his face. "No, they were just making out! Besides, Odd wouldn't do that since he's a vir... a very nice guy. Look, the point is Odd is dating Sissi. Doesn't that freak anyone out?"

"No," Aelita answered. "I mean, she isn't exactly the nicest person on the planet but if Odd wants to date her, that's fine by me. Why are you getting so worked up about it?"

"Before we knew about Lyoko," he answered, "Sissi was always stalking me, trying to get me to date her. I was never interested but she kept going after me. It got worse when Yumi entered the picture since that made her try even harder to get me. No matter how much I said no, she tried that much harder to get me to say yes. Yeah, she hasn't tried to do that in a while, but seeing her with Odd makes me think she's using him to try to get me again." Ulrich buried his face in his hands and sighed. "You might not understand, Aelita, since you haven't had anyone chase you relentlessly like that, at least besides XANA and Jeremie."

Aelita turned to Jeremie and saw his pose turn from attentive to defensive. "Hey, I wasn't stalking her. Just... trying to save her," he said before going back to his attentive pose. "But that's beside the point. The thing is I think the girl you saw looked enough like Sissi that it scared you and made you panic. I can tell you that from experience since we all remember that's what happened to me when I thought we materialized Aelita the first time."

"So what should I do?" Ulrich asked, now in a much calmer state than before.

"Simple," Jeremie answered. "Just ask him to tell you what's going on. Leave no detail behind."

"You realize that it'll be easier to pull teeth from a rabid wolf than to get the whole truth out of Odd," Ulrich said.

"Not like we haven't tried ourselves," Jeremie said, "but if he told you about him being a 'very nice guy', he'll probably tell you the truth about this whole situation."

"Maybe," he said, "but the only way I'll find out is if I go back and ask him now." He approached the door. As he grabbed the door knob, he turned around and asked a question. "Weren't you guys supposed to be working at the factory today?"

Aelita fielded the question. "We were but we decided at the last minute that we could get more work done here."

"Oh. So why was the door locked?"

Aelita looked at Jeremie for a minute. "So we wouldn't be bothered while we work."

"OK," he said. "Hey, thanks for hearing me out, you guys." Ulrich closed the door behind him and began his walk back to his room. The answers he got to his last questions seemed fishy, he thought to himself. This was especially true since Jeremie had never locked his door before. Still, he didn't need two mysteries to solve simultaneously. Right now, he just needed to find out for sure who that mystery girl was.

Jeremie walked over to the door and locked it. He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the door when he turned to face Aelita. "So, Ms. Hopper," he said, "where were we?"

"That depends," she answered. "Are you talking about the computer thing or the other thing?"

Jeremie looked up in the air briefly, trying to think of a good answer to that question. "I think I'll let you decide."

Aelita wore a devious grin on her face. "He has no idea what he just put himself into," she thought to herself.

Ulrich opened the door to his room and found a fully clothed Odd sitting on his bed typing something on his laptop. "Hey, man," he said as he greeted his roommate. "Sorry about what happened earlier."

"Don't sweat it," Odd assured him. "It was my fault for not warning you or locking the door."

Ulrich laughed for a bit. "So, who was that girl?"

Odd closed his laptop and put it away for the day. "Oh, just that girl I met online."

Ulrich nodded. "She looks a lot like Sissi."

"No way," Odd said, "I don't see it."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he answered. "They both have black hair but that's where the similarities end, thankfully. Why, do you miss having her stalk you every minute of the day?"

"No way!" Ulrich said in disgust. "I already have a girl in my life. I don't need the return of the psycho Principal's daughter."

"Huh?"

"Nothing," Ulrich said quickly. He was mentally slapping himself for almost revealing his and Yumi's little secret.

Odd yawned. "Well, I'm going to turn in early. Night, buddy."

"Night." Ulrich took out a notebook and began writing in it like he did the previous night. "Hey, Odd?"

"Yeah?" he said, his eyes already closed.

"Did you guys just make out earlier or..."

"Make out. Nothing more," Odd answered quickly.

"So why were you shirtless?" Ulrich asked.

Odd yawned again. "Her idea, not mine." With that, he quickly fell asleep while Ulrich continued to write in his notebook.

Pork chops and mixed vegetables was the special of the cafeteria today. Ulrich took his plate and sat down across from Jeremie and Aelita.

"So, did he say anything?" Jeremie asked.

Ulrich took a spoonful of vegetables. "Well, he's saying that the girl just looks like Sissi."

"Told you. That's what caused your paranoia last night," Jeremie said as he cut up his meat.

"Sorry," Ulrich said, "but I still don't buy it. I think he's hiding something."

"Hiding what?" Yumi asked as she took a seat beside Ulrich.

Aelita decided to answer her question. "Ulrich thinks that Odd is dating Sissi."

"What?"

Aelita nodded. "Apparently, he thinks he saw her with Odd in their dorm room last night when he accidentally walked in on them."

Yumi burst into laughter. "That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard."

Ulrich shook his head. "Not you, too."

"Ulrich," she said, "you're talking about the two people who hate each other the most in this school. What makes you think that they would get together?"

"Because I walked in on a shirtless Odd on top of her in his bed," he said.

Yumi's eyes widened as she almost performed a spit-take. "You walked in on him having sex?"

Ulrich shook his head again. "No, he was just making out with a girl that looked too much like Sissi that it has to be her."

"So you don't know for sure that it was her?" she asked.

"Well," he started out, "he told me that it wasn't her but I'm pretty sure it was."

Jeremie chimed in. "I'm telling him he's just traumatized."

"Well, I'm with Jeremie on this one," Yumi said. "But we'll know for sure right now." Everyone oat the table looked at the direction she was pointing at. They saw Odd pass by Sissi's table and stop. They could barely make out what was being said but it didn't sound like compliments or words of desire were being traded between the two. As Odd headed towards their table, the gang stopped looking and tried to act as normal as possible.

"See," Jeremie whispered to Ulrich. "Paranoid."

"Maybe," he responded.


	16. The BreakUp

The next two weeks proved to be very interesting for the enemies turned lovers. Every day they would meet up and try to hang out with each other as much as possible. Every night they would go online and make plans for the next day. Because their hatred for each other was well known throughout the school, however, they made sure to keep their relationship a secret from everyone else for as long as possible. This was especially true for Odd since his circle of friends already had deep issues of mistrust and hatred for Sissi. Planning out areas to meet and things to do that would involve them not being seen by anyone was difficult and challenging, especially from an emotional standpoint. Odd was finding it hard to keep making up stories about his girlfriend to the rest of his friends. He hated lying to them about her but he was afraid of how they would react if they found out the truth. Sissi was also feeling the emotional strain of the secret relationship. She would often force herself to insult and ridicule him just to keep up appearances for the public. Privately, she hated having to put down the one she grew so fond of day in and day out. Going from hating each other one moment to loving each other the next to a repeat of the cycle was too much to handle. They both knew that the charade would have to stop one day.

Odd waited in line like everyone else for the meal of the day: tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. As he was two people away from receiving his meal, he felt the vibration of his cell phone. He pulled it out and saw that Sissi had sent him a text message.

"Meet prk aftr skool."

Odd got his tray and made his way to his table. When he passed by Sissi, nothing had happened. No insults traded. No thrown objects. No angry stares. He sat at his table and thought to himself that something was amiss.

"Hey, Odd, what's wrong with Sissi today?" Jeremie asked. "Usually you guys argue the minute you two see each other."

"I don't know," he said, taking a sip of his soup. "Must be that time of month for her." That last comment landed him a kick to his left shin from Yumi and one to his right shin from Aelita. His body buckled under the pain, almost causing him to smack his chin on the table in the process. Both Jeremie and Ulrich simply shook their heads at the sight. They knew better than to ever blame a girl's change of mood on that monthly event.

Odd got back up and stayed silent for fear of being injured again. As he dipped his sandwich in his soup, he started to have a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach about what happened when he passed by Sissi. He dismissed it, telling himself that nothing was wrong at all. Everything was going to be just fine.

The school bell had ended classes for the day. Odd traveled to the park and found Sissi sitting on the bench. He smiled, recognizing that this was the bench where they first met. He approached Sissi and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. Something felt different, though. Unlike other times, there was no feeling of passion in that exchange. It felt cold and emotionless. Worse, his girlfriend now had a somber look on her face. Odd recognized this and sat down beside her. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Sissi looked at him, his face filled with worry. "We need to talk."

"OK," he said as he gulped. The feeling of uneasiness came back to his stomach. He knew that anytime someone ever said those words, something was wrong.

Sissi stammered as she tried to get the words out. "I... we... you... we have to break up."

"What?" he asked in a low tone. He heard what she said but hoped that his ears had deceived him.

Sissi looked away for a bit as she tried to hold back her emotions. "I like you. I really do. All this time we've been together I've learned so much about you. You're funny, witty, and a caring person. I've seen a side to you that few will ever see and I am grateful for that." She breathed deep as she continued to fight herself. "But I like you so much that I can't stand to see you get hurt. And that's what I'm doing to you. Every day, I have to sit there in front of everyone and belittle and ridicule you because I'm afraid of what they'll say if they find out about us. I have to go through an emotional roller coaster every day because I don't want to get you hurt. But in the end, we're both getting hurt and I don't like doing that to you."

"Sissi," Odd said, interrupting her train of thought. "I told you before I don't care what other people think. None of them matter to me."

"What about your friends?" she asked. "Don't they matter to you?"

"They do," he said, "but so do you. Yeah, it may take some time but they'll accept it and they'll accept you."

"And how long will that take?" she asked. "After everything I've put them through in the past, how long will it take for them to forgive me? And what if they don't? What will happen to you. They've been your friends for a long time and I don't want to be the cause of you breaking away from them."

"But..." Odd stammered.

"Look, I've made up my mind. It's over." Sissi got up from the bench and began to walk away.

Odd grabbed her hand before she could move anywhere. "Wait," he pleaded. "Can't we just give it a chance?"

"I'm sorry," she said, trying to fight back the tears. "But this is the only option we have."

"But Sissi..."

"Odd, please..."

"But..."

"Please!" she said with more force in her voice. Tears had already begun to flow down her face. "This is hard enough already."

Odd let go of Sissi's hand. He watched as she pulled it away and ran off. He couldn't believe what had just happened. He pulled his legs up in the fetal position and began to weep. Odd had broken up with girls before and it never hurt emotionally when it happened. This... this was different. Sissi meant more to him that any girl he had met before. She touched him in ways others couldn't. For the first time in his young life, Odd's heart was left broken. He sat on that same bench, shedding tears until the sun had set and the lights had turned on.


	17. His and Her Story

The light of the sun had broken through the window. At 7:00 sharp the buzz of the alarm rang through the room. Odd woke up and shut off his alarm. As he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, he looked around to find himself in his bed wearing the same clothes he wore yesterday. Before he could ask himself what had happened Ulrich walked into the room.

"Morning, Odd," he said. "Feeling any better?"

Odd yawned and stretched in his bed. "I guess so, though I have no idea how I got here."

"Seriously?" Ulrich asked.

Odd nodded. "Sorry, but yesterday was a big blur to me."

"Well," he said, "you came in late. You had a long look on your face as you collapsed on your bed. When I asked you what was wrong, you said nothing and went straight to bed. So, what happened yesterday?"

Odd sighed as he recounted exactly what happened. "My girl broke up with me yesterday."

"I'm sorry, man," he said, trying his hardest to console him. "But you'll be OK. I mean, you've broken up with other girls before and you were fine. This shouldn't be different."

Odd shook his head. "This is different, Ulrich. Those other girls I dated for fun. This one... this one I fell in love with. I don't know if I'll ever recover." With that, he got his stuff together and went to the bathroom to wash up.

Lunch time had arrived and hamburgers were selected for the main course. Odd quietly walked from the lunch line to the table where the rest of his friends sat. As everyone else ate their meal, he simply sat there and stared at his food. A few more minutes had passed and the hamburger Odd had stared at was still in the same state it was before. By this time, all of his friends could sense something was wrong.

"Odd, what's wrong?" Aelita asked, deciding that someone should break the ice.

He sighed. "My girlfriend broke up with me yesterday."

Aelita's tone of voice changed from inquisitive to somber. "I'm sorry to hear that."

No one else had anything else to say. Part of this was the fact that none of them had ever been in a serious relationship before. As a result, anything that they could have said would not have helped out Odd in any way. A few more moments of silence had passed before Odd decided to stop staring at his food. He got up and slid his tray to the middle of the table. "I'm sorry, but I don't feel hungry right now." His friends looked at him as he left the table and made his way out of the cafeteria. As he walked by, he glanced over at Sissi, who also shared the same somber look he did. She briefly glanced at him as he passed by before both of them broke away from looking at each other.

"We have to do something to cheer him up," Yumi said to the rest of the group. Everyone else nodded in agreement, hating to see their friend in such misery.

The last bell of the day had sounded off at Kadic Academy. Odd left his last class the same way he entered and left every class that day: head down and silent. As he made his way through the campus, his friends all caught up with him and flanked him on both sides.

"Hey, Odd, want to go watch a movie?" Jeremie asked.

"They've got the new sci-fi one playing at the multiplex," Yumi added.

Odd sighed. "Sorry, guys, I'm just not in the mood right now."

"You sure?" Ulrich asked. "I mean, we all haven't hung out together for a while. It'll be good for you."

Odd smiled weakly. "I know what you guys are trying to do and I appreciate it, but right now I just need to be alone." He continued walking towards the dorms.

"Well, now what?" Aelita asked.

"We just give him some time," he responded. "He'll be back to normal soon."

Night had fallen over the academy as most of the students retreated to their dorms for the remainder of the day. Sissi, much like Odd, had felt horrible for most of the day. Unlike him, however, she did not have too many people she could rely on to try and cheer her up. Instead, she went to the one source that could be blamed for starting all of this in the first place: the chat room. The minute she logged on, she received a private chat request from AnnRKay and immediately accepted it.

** AnnRKay ** What did you do?

** LizzyKitty ** Huh?

** AnnRKay ** I heard something happened between you and OddDog.

** LizzyKitty ** Oh, that. Wait, how did you know? Did he come in here recently?

** AnnRKay ** That's not important. What's important is that you tell me what happened?

** LizzyKitty ** I broke up with him yesterday.

** AnnRKay ** Why? I thought that things were going so well between you two. You told me yourself.

** LizzyKitty ** They were, but...

** AnnRKay ** But...

** LizzyKitty ** But I got scared. I mean, were practically keeping this a secret from everyone else we know.

** AnnRKay ** Secret? Why?

** LizzyKitty ** Well, his friends never liked me too much.

** LizzyKitty ** OK, they never really liked me at all. Anyway, anytime they saw me, we had to pretend like we hated each other. And that sucked because I never want to feel like I hate him again.

** AnnRKay ** OK, I think I understand. So why not just let the secret out?

** LizzyKitty ** Because I don't think they'll be so accepting about it. I mean, did I ever tell you when OddDog and I first saw each other we wanted to kill each other?

** AnnRKay ** Actually, you never did. So how long did it take before you guys accepted it?

** LizzyKitty ** 10 minutes.

** AnnRKay ** Wow, that's real long.

** LizzyKitty ** Hey!

** AnnRKay ** Seriously, if you guys hated each other, what made you stop?

** LizzyKitty ** Well, I mean, we got to know each other before we knew who we really were. After the initial shock wore off, everything was fine.

** AnnRKay ** So what makes you think his friends won't change their minds when they get to know you better?

** LizzyKitty ** I don't. I just don't want to have to put him through that situation.

**AnnRKay shakes her head**

** AnnRKay ** Well, I think you're getting paranoid about the situation. I think you guys should hook back up and not keep it a secret anymore. However, it's your decision not mine. All I can say is that you have time to rethink this.

** LizzyKitty ** Maybe. I'll think about it.

** LizzyKitty ** So, how do your friends feel about you and TechKey?

** AnnRKay ** Um, actually they don't know yet.

** LizzyKitty ** What?!?

** AnnRKay ** Well, they know we're friends. In fact, he's friends with my friends. They just don't know he and I are more than friends.

** LizzyKitty ** How does that work out? Don't they suspect something if they see you guys hanging out together so much?

** AnnRKay ** Well, they tease us about how we'd be perfect for each other but think we're too chicken to do anything about it. Besides, every time we're together, they think we're working on stuff.

** LizzyKitty ** And are you?

** AnnRKay ** We are... and I mean that both ways.

** LizzyKitty ** Oh man.

** LizzyKitty ** So where are you now?

** AnnRKay ** In his room.

** LizzyKitty ** And you're sitting here talking to me instead of him?

** AnnRKay ** He's busy programming something right now. He won't notice me for a while.

** LizzyKitty ** Curious. What's he like?

** AnnRKay ** Imagine your typical nerd. Really shy, especially around girls. Really smart. Not all that athletic at all.

** LizzyKitty ** And yet...

** AnnRKay ** And yet, he's sweet. He's always looking out for me. He makes sure I'm OK all the time. If I'm not happy, he's not happy and he hates not being happy.

** LizzyKitty ** That's sweet of him. You're so lucky.

** AnnRKay ** Actually, I'm lucky that I find him so attractive.

** LizzyKitty **Really?

** AnnRKay ** Um, let me rephrase that. He's sexy.

** LizzyKitty ** What?

** AnnRKay ** I find him really sexy. Like, right now, I just want to take him away from his computer and jump his bones.

**LizzyKitty shrieks**

** LizzyKitty ** Too much information! Too much information!

** AnnRKay ** Sorry. Got a little carried away there.

** LizzyKitty ** Um, yeah.

** LizzyKitty ** Anyway, you go ahead and do what you want to your man. I'll just spend tonight sulking.

** AnnRKay ** Listen, just think about what I said, alright?

** LizzyKitty ** Fine.

** AnnRKay ** I'm serious. Think about this now before you regret it later, OK?

** LizzyKitty ** I will.

**LizzyKitty hugs AnnRKay**

** LizzyKitty ** Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you later.

** AnnRKay ** Bye.

**LizzyKitty has left private chat**

Aelita closed her laptop and set it aside. She spied Jeremie with wanting eyes. All that talk about her boyfriend made her desire him even more. She crept up behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Jeremie," she asked, "what are you doing?"

Jeremie's focus was set on his monitor. "Tweaking the skid," he said. "I'm trying to strengthen the armor so we have more protection from XANA's new monsters."

She placed her chin on the top of his head. "Honey, while I appreciate all the work you're putting in, you should probably call it a night."

"But if I can get at least one more hour, I think I can double the strength without sacrificing speed," he reasoned.

"But if you tire yourself out, won't you have a greater chance of weakening the skid?" she asked.

"No, it's OK," he said. "I've got this under control."

"Seems like I have to try harder," Aelita said to herself. Her hands slowly caressed his chest as it moved downward. She brushed her cheek against his before lightly dabbing it with kisses. As she reached his neck, she could tell that his breathing became heavier and his heartbeat had raced. She pressed her lips against his neck while one hand continued down his body and the other hand reached for his glasses.

Jeremie's hands broke away from the keyboard. He helped Aelita remove his glasses as he turned to face her. His lips touched her forehead before touching her nose then finally her lips. He felt lightheaded as he kept his lips on hers for what seemed like an eternity before breaking away.

"I guess I can call it an early night," he said, giving her a smile.

Aelita smiled back not saying a word. She turned his chair to face her before climbing on to his lap and bathing him with kisses.


	18. The Lyoko Incident

The first day of the weekend arrived with much fanfare. After five straight days of learning things such as sonnets and geometry problems, the students of Kadic Academy took this time to live to their heart's content. Some took this time to relax while others chose to do things in town. With the weekend only lasting two days, everyone made sure to spend their free time wisely.

Ulrich searched around his dorm to make sure he had everything he needed for the day. He patted down his pockets to make sure he didn't forget anything. As he slipped on his shoes, he spied Odd finally waking up from his slumber.

"Going somewhere, buddy?" Odd asked as he yawned and rubbed his eyes.

"Just going out to catch a movie with Yumi," Ulrich said. "You got anything in mind for today?"

Odd got out of bed and stood up. "Nah, just gonna hang out here for the day."

"You sure?" he asked. "I mean, you never stay home on a Saturday."

Odd nodded. "It's cool. You guys have fun."

Ulrich walked out of the room and closed the door behind him. For once, Odd didn't pester him about hanging out with Yumi by himself. While he would normally consider this a blessing, it left Ulrich worried. He made a note to do something about it later as he walked out of campus to Yumi's house.

Jeremie leaned back in his chair and smiled. Taking a break from the computer was a blessing since it helped him clear his mind. Instead of spending an hour working on the skid, he had just spent half that time in front of his computer and successfully upgraded the armor on the skid. As he proceeded to save his progress, the scanner on his computer began to beep wildly. He turned his focus to his program and saw that a tower had just been activated. The mouse clicked on the flashing red spot to reveal that the tower had been activated in the far end of the replicated forest. Jeremie opened his alert program and sent out the notice to the rest of the Lyoko warriors before heading out to the factory.

Aelita locked her room as she made her way downstairs. She met up with Odd who had just left his room as well.

"Any idea what XANA is up to?" he asked.

"No clue," she responded. "Jeremie hasn't told me anything about it."

Ulrich and Yumi pulled out their phones simultaneously and saw the alert flash on their screens.

"There goes the movie," he said as he began to move towards the factory.

Yumi shrugged as she began her run. "Just as well," she said. "There wasn't anything good playing anyway."

"That's not really a bad thing if you think about it," he said with a wishful smile on his face.

Yumi shook her head. "You're worse than Odd," she said playfully.

All four warriors met up at the factory and quickly made the descent to the supercomputer. The door to the elevator opened to reveal Jeremie already stationed at the terminal, his fingers furiously tapping away at the keyboard.

"What's the emergency?" Aelita asked.

Jeremie brought up the Lyoko map. "We've got a tower in the replicated forest that went live."

Ulrich clenched his fists. "What's XANA up to this time?"

"That's the weird part." Jeremie opened up several windows displaying news websites, satellite views of the earth and live news broadcasts. "There's no sign of an attack anywhere." He opened up another window with a live view of Lyoko itself. "No activity on Lyoko either. It's just an activated tower and nothing more."

"That is weird," Yumi stated. "So what do we do?"

Jeremie rubbed his chin. "Well, we could just go shut it down, though it might be a trap."

"I vote for shutdown," Ulrich said. "No telling what XANA has planned with that tower active."

Jeremie nodded with everyone else. "I'll get the scanners ready."

Everyone rode the elevator once more while Jeremie tapped away at the keyboard. Each of the warriors stepped out of the elevator car and stepped into their designated scanner pods. A few keystrokes later each of them materialized in the skid and were soon off into the digital sea.

"Aelita," Jeremie said over the intercom, "I sent the coordinates over. You should see the entrance to the replica soon."

"Roger that," she relayed as she put more speed into the skid.

"Man, the digital sea can sometimes be beautiful when you view it from the inside," Yumi exclaimed.

Odd sighed. "I suppose."

"Get ready, everyone," Aelita warned as she began to dock at the replica entrance. Moments later the skid emerged from the digital sea and into the replicated forest. Once it stabilized everyone rematerialized on the ground. The tower was only a few yards away from their landing point, glowing red with XANA's influential energy.

"Let's make this quick," Ulrich ordered. "By the numbers, people. Odd, your turn to take point."

Odd sighed again. "Sure." He stood in front of Aelita while Ulrich and Yumi flanked her, giving her protection from almost all angles. They all scanned the area as they approached the tower, ready for any attack that could come their way. To their surprise, they reached the tower without any incident.

"Hey, Jeremie," Yumi called out, "you see anything out there?"

Jeremie zoomed out of the area. "Negative. It's quiet where you are."

Ulrich shrugged as he motioned to Aelita that it was safe to enter the tower and o through the deactivation sequence. As soon as she completely entered the complex, Jeremie's voice blared out to the rest of the group.

"I got some activity coming your way. Looks kinda small on my radar."

"Small is right," she responded as the group came face to face with one lone kankrelat. The creature walked towards the tower in a straight line and stopped several feet away from the group. It pivoted left and right before looking straight ahead again. Yumi looker perplexed. "Now what?"

Ulrich reached back and grabbed the handle of one of his katanas. "Not sure," he said, "but be ready for anything."

Odd's face showed no concern over the situation. With his arms at his side, he walked towards the enemy.

"Odd, what the heck are you doing?" Yumi called out.

The purple-clad warrior ignored the question and continued walking forward. When he reached the kankrelat he knelt down and picked it up by the carapace. He turned it around in the air, examining it from all possible angles. After some time, he put the creature down on the ground, making sure it faced away from the tower. After nudging it, he and everyone else present watched it walk away without any signs of an attack being prepared. Once the kankrelat was at a good distance, Odd walked back to the group.

"What you did was crazy, man," Ulrich exclaimed as he loosened hi grip on his weapon. "You could have gotten hurt."

Odd shrugged his shoulders. At that moment, Aelita had just finished entering the deactivation code, enabling all of them to return back to the real world.


	19. Confessions

The final day of the weekend was upon everyone at Kadic. The last day for all of the students and faculty to relax before the week of learning and work begins again. Jeremie and Aelita continued their work on the skid. After last time, they wanted to make sure that the vehicle would survive another massive attack. Yumi and Ulrich went out to the movies again. While the selection didn't change, after yesterday's strange incident, they figured they needed a bit of normalcy again. Odd stayed in the dorms, occasionally going out to take Kiwi for a walk or to eat before going back to sitting on his bed.

Ulrich came back to the dorm hours after the movie had ended. Just as Yumi had predicted, the best movie playing at the multiplex was barely enjoyable. However, being with his girl and making out with her in the theater made it much more enjoyable. Not like they couldn't have done that anywhere else but the allure of a darkened movie theater with your special someone suddenly made that activity more romantic. As he set aside his things, Ulrich looked to his best friend still sitting down in his bed, the same position he was in when Ulrich left for the movies.

Ulrich sighed. "Have you just been sitting there all day?" he asked.

Odd kept his eyes facing forward. "Yup."

"Are you going to do anything else?" he asked, slightly frustrated.

Odd stayed perfectly still. "Nope."

"Are you ever going to talk to me about what's bothering you?" he asked, now showing his frustration over the whole affair.

Odd was sounding more and more like a broken record. "Nope."

"Fine." Ulrich sat down on his bed. He grabbed a pen and his notebook and began to write. After a few moments of writing, he put down his pen and closed the notebook. Setting them aside, he stood up and walked over to Odd. Once Odd turned to look at his friend, Ulrich grabbed a chair and sat down beside the bed, leaning forward with his hands together in front of him.

"Hey, Odd," Ulrich said, "I have something to tell you."

Odd looked at him, all expression drained from his face.

"You know how I never talk about what's going on between Yumi and I? How I always end up dropping the subject whenever you ask anything about us? Well, guess what? We are officially a couple."

Odd blinked his eyes. His face remained the same, as if emotion was something he never experienced in his life.

"Yep, Yumi and I are together. We've been that way for a while, actually. We just made sure to try and hide it from you guys for as long as possible. Isn't that great?"

Odd blinked his eyes again. No quips, retorts or comments escaped his lips.

"You want to know what else?" Ulrich asked. "We've been having sex. I am now officially a man and I transformed her into a woman. And when we did it the first time, it was good. So good, in fact, that we go at it like rabbits. All day, every day, twice on Sundays and certain holidays. You know all those study dates I have with Yumi? We study anatomy, if you can call it that. We've done it all over her house. Living room. Dining room. Dining room table. Kitchen. Stairwell. Bathroom. Her room. Her parent's room. Her parent's bathroom. One time we even kicked Hiroki out of his room because we hadn't done it there yet. When we finished that we went here. My bed. Your bed. If it was big enough, we would have gone at it on Kiwi's little bed in the drawer."

The little dog woke up from his slumber and cocked his head upon hearing his name. Thinking it was a false alarm, he put his head back down and went back to sleep a few moments later.

"And you know what?" Ulrich continued. "I have a videotape of it all. So, what do you think now? Are you satisfied I told you everything about us? Does it make you happy? Do you want to see the tape?"

Odd blinked one more time. "That's nice," he said as he turned his head to face forward again.

Ulrich shot up out of the chair and screamed. His plan to get some kind of emotion and response out of Odd had failed miserably as he got nowhere with it. "You know what? Fine. We've all tried to help you get over your break-up with that last girl. We've tried everything we could think of and all you want to do is sit around in your room and mope like some sad sack. We want the old Odd back. The one that would always throw around quips and do nothing but smile at life. You get with a girl. You break up with her or vice versa. You get sad for a brief moment then you bounce back up. But if all you want to do is just sit around and feel sorry for everything then that's fine. That's just fine!" He shoved the chair back in it's previous place before flopping down on his bed. Taking the notebook and pen he held earlier, he opened the book up to the last page he was on and began to write away. Silence permeated throughout the room for quite some time. Finally, Odd decided it was time for him to talk with more than one word coming out of his mouth.

"Hey, Ulrich," he said.

"Yeah?"

"If I tell you something, will you promise not to freak out?" Odd asked.

"Are you gay and do you want my body?" Ulrich asked, his attention still focused on his notebook.

"No way!" Odd exclaimed, stunned that such a thing was even asked.

"Then I'm not going to freak out," he responded.

Odd breathed deep. "Well... OK, you know that girl that broke up with me?"

"Yeah," he answered, still writing in his notebook.

"That was Sissi."

"OK, so... wait, what?"

"The girl that I, Odd Della Robbia, was dating was Elisabeth Delmas, the daughter of the Principal."

"A Ha!" Ulrich said as he jumped out of his bed and slapped his hands together before pointing at his friend. "I knew it! I knew when I walked in on you two that it was her. I..." He paused for a second. "I thought you guys hated each other."

Odd nodded. "Well, yeah, but when I was talking to her online, I found out she had a different personality. She was sweet, caring, and she laughed at my jokes. I knew I wanted to be with her."

Ulrich looked confused. "But when you found out who it was, then what?"

"Well, I was shocked," Odd said frankly, "but I suddenly saw her as a different person. She wasn't the same annoying Sissi anymore. She was a beautiful person to me."

"So why did you keep it all a secret?" he asked.

"It was her idea." Odd looked at Ulrich. "Besides, if I told you that we were dating, how would you react?"

Ulrich was stunned. He didn't want to hurt his friend's feeling but he couldn't lie to him either. "Well, I'd freak out! I mean, this is Sissi we're talking about. And you know how much Yumi wants to hurt her."

Odd pointed at Ulrich. "Exactly. Now you know why I agreed not to say anything."

Ulrich shook his head. "But that doesn't matter. We're your friends and real friends can accept any circumstance... even if it means your best friend is dating one of your worst enemies." The room fell silent for a moment before Ulrich spoke again. "So now what?"

Odd shrugged his shoulders. "I've been thinking about that ever since the break-up and I still don't have any idea what to do now."

Ulrich put his hand on Odd's shoulder. "Listen, whatever you decide to do, we'll be there for you. Just don't do something stupid."

Odd nodded slowly. "Thanks, man. That means a lot to me."

Ulrich smiled before going back to his bed and back to his writing. Moments passed before Odd decided to break the silence again.

"So... you and Yumi really are having..."

"No," he interrupted quickly. "We aren't doing that."

"But you said..."

"I just said that to get a reaction out of you. Besides, Yumi and are are still vir..." Ulrich caught himself. Just like his conversation with Aelita and Jeremie, he almost relayed too much information. "We're still very good people."

Odd shook his head. "That is, by far, the worst cover I have ever heard."

"Shut up, Odd." Ulrich went back to his notebook. Odd decided to interrupt him again.

"So you two are finally dating, huh?" Odd was answered with silence. "Are you guys an item? Hey, Ulrich? Dude? U-man?"

"Maybe," Ulrich said, his attention still on his writing.

Odd laughed a bit. "Looks like all those study dates paid off." He stroked his chin, thinking out loud. "Maybe I should go tell Aelita and Jeremie. I wonder if... OW!" he screamed as he was pelted with a pillow. He saw Ulrich smiling, which caused him to smile and throw the pillow back. Feeling much better than before, he decided to leave Ulrich alone for the rest of the day as he opened up his laptop.


	20. Proclamation to the World

The first lunch of the school week featured grilled chicken as the main dish. Odd sat down with the rest of his friends, his mood considerably better than it was for the past few days.

"Looks like our little Odd-ball is cured," Yumi stated as she turned to Ulrich. "So, what happened?"

Ulrich looked at Odd who nodded. "Well, I finally got Odd to tell me who the girl on the internet was."

Everyone in the table leaned in. "So, who was it?" Jeremie asked.

"Sissi."

Everyone looked at Odd who confirmed it by nodding.

"But, I thought..." Jeremie said.

"Long story," Odd said. "Really long story."

Everyone looked at each other and shrugged. Aelita broke the silence. "So, now what?"

"I don't know," Odd said. He turned around to see Sissi sitting down at her usual seat. "But I think I have a plan." He got up from his sat and straightened out his clothes. "Hey, Jeremie?"

"Yeah?" Jeremie said as he put down his fork.

"If this doesn't work out, do me a favor and do a 'return to the past' for me, please." Odd began to walk away from the group.

"Odd!" Ulrich shouted. "I thought I told you not to..." He stopped when he realized that Odd wasn't going to listen anymore.

Yumi leaned over. "What's he doing?" she asked.

Ulrich sighed. "Something stupid."

Odd walked over and stood by Sissi. She looked at him briefly before quickly averting her eyes. "Listen, Odd, I'm not in the mood to fight with you today," she said.

"I didn't come over to fight," he said. "I wanted to talk."

Sissi looked around, glad that no one had noticed Odd near her right now, Nikolas and Herve exempted. She lowered her tone of voice. "Where do you want to talk?"

"Right here is fine," he said.

"Now?"

"Now."

Sissi looked at her cohorts and jerked her head, signaling that they move somewhere else for the time being. Herve and Nikolas looked at each other confused before picking up their trays and moving to the next empty table. She scooted over so that Odd could have a seat. "So, what is it?" she asked.

"I want to get back together," he blurted out.

"What?"

"Listen," he explained, "ever since we broke up, I've been miserable. I haven't been myself. I was a different Odd, one that didn't care about myself or anyone else and was fine living in misery. I felt... I felt like a piece of myself was missing. After some soul searching and some help from my friends, I found out that missing you in my life right now caused me all that misery. I want you back."

"But what about your friends?" she asked.

Odd shook his head. "I'm sorry, but that reason is kind of lame. At times like this being selfish is OK. Besides, you can't tell me you weren't feeling miserable too these past few days."

Sissi was feeling lost those past few days. She missed Odd but still kept thinking her reasons for breaking up were right.

"Look, I'll show you just how lame that reason is." Odd moved the chair aside and stood up. He placed one foot on the seat before Sissi grabbed him by the sleeve.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Probably something stupid," he replied. "But trust me. This will work." He got both feet planted on the seat and used it as a stool. He cleared his throat before be began to speak out loud. "Hey, everyone! Can I have your attention for just a second please?"

Everyone in the cafeteria stopped what they were doing and focus their attention on Odd. Usually, anytime he would do something like this he ended up either doing something or saying something stupid. Whether or not he was successful didn't matter since he was entertaining all the same.

"Thank you," Odd said addressing the crowd. "I just wanted to let everyone here to know that I am in love with Elisabeth Delmas!"

The crowd fell silent as the jaws of most of the students there fell to the floor. Everyone knew Odd as the Kadic Casanova for the many girls he had dated since attending Kadic. Few of them expected him to focus his energy on just one girl. Fewer still expected that girl to be Sissi.

"What!" the Lyoko warriors shouted in unison. Just a few moments ago they all knew that Odd was dating Sissi before the break-up occurred. They knew that he was going to talk to Sissi about something but they had no idea that he would pull off a stunt like this.

"What?" Milly said. The school reporter had not seen this coming a mile away. Though she prided herself on being the source of legitimate news and gossip for the school, she was kicking herself for not picking up on this sooner, especially since she always saw both of them in the chat room being awfully quiet. Nevertheless, she quickly picked up her pen and notepad and began taking down some notes.

"What!" Herve shouted out. All of those warnings from Nikolas about someone trying to sweep Sissi off her feet were coming true. He didn't expect that of all people to do such a thing it would be the one that argued with her day in and day out.

"That's right," Odd confirmed, "I am in love with Sissi. And I don't mean that puppy love kind. I mean that true love kind." Odd jumped down from his impromptu stool and faced Sissi. "I love you and I really don't care who knows it."

Sissi was stunned. She couldn't believe that he would do such a thing, especially in front of what practically was the whole school. While she wasn't angry with him, she was slightly flattered that he would go to such lengths to prove himself to her. "Odd, I..."

Odd had interrupted Sissi with a kiss. His eyes closed with confidence as he pressed his lips against hers, his hands resting on the back of her head. Her eyes widened in surprise as he shocked her once more with his actions, her arms outstretched on either side. Despite how things looked, she presented no resistance when their lips met. In fact, after a few moments had passed, she began to relax and give in to what was happening.

Silence still permeated throughout the cafeteria. After everything that had happened, everyone was anticipating Sissi's next move. When those in attendance saw that she was beginning to wrap her arms around him, some of them started clapping their hands. In a short amount of time, the clapping grew louder and louder until everyone was applauding the couple.

"Yes!" Tamiya said, snapping a picture of the couple. She took a few more pictures, confident that this would make a great front page story for the Kadic newspaper.

"Yes!" Aelita shouted out. She always Odd to find the same happiness that she did with Jeremie. She also wanted Sissi to find happiness ever since their first encounter in the chat room. The fact that they both found happiness with each other was unexpected but she was smart enough to know that fate always worked mysteriously.

"No!" Herve shouted. His worst nightmare, having Sissi fall in love with another man, was happening right before his eyes. Feeling helpless and powerless, all he could do was cry while his friend tried as hard as he could to console him.

Principal Delmas walked into the cafeteria to do a random observation on the students. His interest piqued when he saw all of the students applauding and cheering. However, his interest turned to rage when he saw what they were cheering at.

"MISTER DELLA ROBBIA!"

The cheering and applause immediately came to a screeching halt when the booming voice of the Principal resonated through the building. The crowd looked alarmed, wondering what would possibly happen now. Odd immediately broke away from the kiss and looked at the Principal sheepishly, hoping that he would suddenly calm down. Unfortunately, this was not going to be the case.

"My office! Now!"

Odd grimaced. He knew he was going to be in trouble, but with the emotional state the Principal was in now, the amount of trouble he was going to be in was questionable. As he walked towards the exit, head looking down, Sissi turned around to face her father. She tried to say something with her hand stretched out but stopped herself. She knew how stubborn her father could get anytime he was upset. She sat back down as all of the other students went back about their business, pretending like nothing had just happened.

"Should I get the program ready?" Jeremie asked.

"Let's wait until the end of the day," Aelita said. "I don't think Odd wants to go back just yet."


	21. Starting Over

Sissi sat on a bench in the quad. She looked at the door of the school building, waiting for the door to open. She looked down at her watch then looked up again to see the door swing open and Odd come through it.

"So how did it go?" she asked.

Odd shrugged. "Not as bad as I thought," he said. "He only gave me a month of detention."

"Well, it could have been worse," she said, smiling a bit to break the tension.

Odd nodded. "He still hates me, but yeah, it's not so bad." Both of them laughed uncomfortably before they fell silent. Each of them looked at each other, waiting for the other to break that silence. Finally, Sissi decided she would be the one to say anything.

"Um, hey, Odd... I've been thinking."

"Yeah," Odd said, anticipating what was next.

"We both approached this whole thing the wrong way. I mean, I share a lot of the blame, but I think we both messed up when we decided to do this. If we ever did this again, I know I would do it differently."

"Um... so what are you saying?" he asked. In the pit of his stomach, he felt that the stunt he pulled earlier might have backfired on him. He was prepared for the consequences and also for Jeremie to initiate a return trip to the past.

Sissi smiled. "I'm saying we start over."

"Start over?" Odd's eyes widened. He was hoping things would work out but he never really expected it to happen.

"Start over," she confirmed. "I want to have a normal relationship. No secrets. No lies. No hiding. Just you and me making the best of everything we have before us."

Odd nodded in agreement. "Well, then, I know the perfect way to start over." He grabbed Sissi's hand and led her towards the dorms.

The Lyoko gang sat in Jeremie's room engaging in some random conversation when they heard a knock on the door. Aelita got up and opened it. Everyone was surprised to see Sissi and Odd standing out in the hallway holding hands.

"Hey, everyone," Odd addressed his group of friends. "I want you to meet my girlfriend Elisabeth."

* * *

**Author's Notes**

_Welcome to Story #4, by far the largest and longest fic I have written thus far. After putting down a general fic, a character driven fic and a fluffy fic with a theme attached to it, I decided to go for a romantic comedy. By far, this is one of the most popular genres for Code Lyoko on the site. To get an idea of how crowded of a genre this is let's keep a few stats in mind. As of this writing, there are 3,683 stories up on the site for Code Lyoko. With 25 stories displayed per page, you have 144 pages of fics to go through that span all genres and ratings. If you simply whittle it down to the subject of romance, there are 80 pages to go through. This equates to 1988 stories that deal with romance one way or another. As you can see, competition for this genre is fierce and it is a very popular genre to work with. Without further ado, here are the big issues from the writing process for this story._

_-Coincidence: First it was "All Hallow's Eve" unknowingly ripping from another fic entitled "A Halloween Dance." Now, as I'm writing my Author's Notes section, I come to find out that this fic unknowingly rips from episode 46 of the series entitled "Deja Vu." I haven't seen these episodes in a long time and I really don't remember this one. So, thanks to lack of research, I had to put some last minute rewrites on the fic so that this seemed like something that would plausibly happen without ignoring the official canon episodes. Nothing big but meaningful nonetheless._

_-Couples: The biggest disagreements among the fans is which characters should hook up. This is especially true for Odd who is notorious for going after any and every girl in the series. I picked Sissi because I don't feel like investing the time and energy into creating an original character for the sole purpose of hooking her up with Odd. I also picked Sissi because they seem to hate each other so much. This is usually a perfect recipe for a couple in a romantic comedy. You can get an equal amount of humor and mush from that type of pairing. Knowing that some people don't care too much for that couple, I did make sure to sprinkle the story with other pairings so that the world would seem alive and that the world will no just revolve on the spotlight couple._

_-Length: Story length is always important. You don't want to shortchange the reader with a really deep plot that has little to no detail to it. At the same time, you don't want to make the story too long by adding artificial depth to it. It's a tricky thing to handle and, hopefully, I'm getting a handle on it. This is a damn long story, though, clocking in at 51 pages in OpenOffice. By comparison, "Writer's Block" came in at 11 pages while "Wits" and "All Hallow's Eve" came in at 10 pages each._

_-References: First off, I have no concrete plans on whether or not most of my fics are going to be part of one big interconnected story arc. In the off chance that I do plan to do that, however, I made sure that there would be little bits in each fic that would reference previous ones or becomes references I future ones. In this case, the only reference made is when Jeremie tells Odd that he almost lost his hearing the last time he let Odd use his computer. In case you were wondering, this was a reference to "Wits" where the volume on the headphones was so loud that XANA's voice almost blew out Jeremie's mind... literally._

_So that's it. I hope you enjoyed this fic as much as the previous ones, if not more. The same deal as before. Reviews are nice, criticism is welcome if it's constructive and flames will be put out by the fire department. I don't know what the next fic will be or how long it will be. One thing for sure, however, is that I will be doing heavy research on it to avoid the near-fatal mistakes from the last two fics._


End file.
